Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
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Details Relating to the Crevasse Theory
20. 
Abundant Food. Same as item 12.
| Mammoth Myths |
Facts |
|---|---|
| 1. Fresh buttercups were in the mouth and stomach of the Berezovka mammoth. |
Its stomach contained three seeds from plants that produce delicate, yellow buttercups. Fragments of other flowers were in its stomach. No large flowers were in its mouth. |
| 2. People have been served mammoth steaks.148 |
These reports persist but are never specific enough to verify. For example, Lydekker reported that “sleigh dogs, as well as Yakuts themselves, have often made a hearty meal on mammoth flesh thousands of years old.”149 Lydekker never visited Russia, let alone Siberia. The following report by Herz appears valid. Herz wrote in his diary that the Berezovka mammoth “looks as fresh as well-frozen beef or horse meat. It looked so appetizing that we wondered for some time whether we should not taste it, but no one would venture to take it into his mouth, and horse flesh was given in the preference. The dogs cleaned up whatever mammoth meat was thrown them.”150 In 1982, construction workers in Siberia uncovered a frozen mammoth and fed it to dogs.151 |
| 3. Mammoths are encased in ice. Their preservation is complete. |
Charles Lyell popularized this myth by writing that mammoth remains are found in icebergs and frozen gravel.152 There are very few reports of complete encasement in ice.153 Other mammoths were near or partially in ice. Herz and Pfizenmayer only believed that their Berezovka mammoth was once fully encased in ice. Most frozen mammoths are found partially preserved in frozen muck or sediments. |
| 4. The mammoth’s small ears, short tail and legs, and anal flap reduced its heat loss in cold Arctic air. This shows that the mammoth was an Arctic animal. |
Animals with large ears and long tails, such as hares and foxes, survive quite well in the Arctic. The legs and tails of Arctic foxes are similar to those of foxes living in warmer climates. While a slight correlation exists between smaller ears in colder habitats, other factors play a stronger role, such as metabolic efficiency, food availability, and adjustable insulation. The African elephant also has a prominent anal flap.154 |
| 5. Mammoths used their long curved tusks to remove snow from plants they ate on the ground. Most tusks show these wear marks. |
Wild elephants live far from snow, yet they also have wear marks on their shorter, less vulnerable tusks. Mammoth tusks do not show extreme abrasion from being scraped over rocky soil in search of food under snow. (Besides, “shoveling” snow with a long, curved stick is a good way to break the stick.) A wild elephant spends about 16 hours a day eating and searching for food.155 If food were buried under snow, mammoths would not have enough hours in the day to gather sufficient food to survive. |
| 6. The curve in the mammoth tusks almost forms a circle. |
“Not one tusk in ten forms a third of a circle, not one in twenty even a semicircle.”156 Artists and museums have popularized this misconception. |
| 7. The wool on woolly mammoths protected them from the Siberian cold. |
The term “woolly” is misleading because true wool has tiny, overlapping scales that interlock and trap air, making it an excellent insulator. Unlike sheep’s wool, mammoth “wool” is only short, coarse underhair. Mammoth hair, some of it long and bristly, has relatively few fibers per square inch. |
| 8. A mammoth’s thick skin and hairy body protected it from the Arctic cold. |
See the earlier section titled “Mammoth Characteristics and Environment” on page 271. |
| 9. Mammoths were larger than today’s elephants. |
Mammoths were larger than Asian elephants, but smaller than African elephants. Usually, mammoths’ tusks and heads were larger than those of all elephants.157 |
| 10. Larger animals generate more heat per unit of body surface area. Therefore, the mammoth would stay warm, even in the Arctic winter. |
The first sentence is true. However, an Arctic mammal must avoid having its warm skin melt snow, as explained earlier. The mammoth’s skin would tend to melt snow, especially if the animal lay down. Its high ground pressure would compress and reduce the insulation provided by its hair. (Elephants doze standing up, but when they feel safe, they will lie down for a few hours of sleep.) Sick or injured mammoths, unable to stand, would probably not have survived. Young mammoths were even more vulnerable. They generated less heat per unit of body surface area and probably spent more time lying down. Newborn mammoths, wet and initially unable to walk, could not have survived for long lying on permafrost, especially if they were born during the long winter. (Elephants are born at all times of the year.) |
21.
Warm Climate. The contents of Berezovka’s stomach showed that he lived in a warm climate, not one containing ice crevasses. Furthermore, tree fragments and roots were found beneath him. Trees do not grow near icy crevasses. Glacial climates prevent tree growth. Many animals and plants buried in northern Siberia and Alaska live only in temperate climates today. Besides, mammoths were not Arctic animals.
22. 
Yedomas and Loess,
Suffocation,
Vertical Compression,
Multi-Continental. The crevasse theory does not explain why mammoths, yedomas, and loess are related, why yedomas contain so much carbon, why these peculiar events occurred over such wide areas on three continents, why some of these huge animals suffocated, or what compressed Dima and Berezovka vertically.
23.
Elevated Burial. Falling into a crevasse or being transported downhill in a glacier would not herd mammoths up onto islands or up near the higher elevations of flat, low plateaus. Crevasses form only on steep slopes.
24.
Rock Ice. Mammoths are sometimes buried near Type 3 ice. Crevasses have only Type 2 ice.
25.
Frozen Muck. Frozen mammoths are found primarily in frozen muck, not ice. Where did all the muck come from, and why are so many large trees buried in it?
26.
Sudden Freezing. Let us assume that after Berezovka had eaten beans at the base of a glacier, he climbed up to a crevasse, fell in, and died. His stomach acids and enzymes would have destroyed his food in a few hours. Because crevasses are not at the base of glaciers, Berezovka’s long trip up the glacier and subsequent freezing must have been unbelievably rapid to prevent this destruction. Besides, what could motivate a grazing beast to climb a long, steep, icy slope?
27.
Dirty Lungs,
Peppered Tusks. Falling into a crevasse would not fire millimeter-size particles (rich in iron and nickel) into mammoth tusks, put gravel in Dima’s lungs or silt, clay, and gravel in Dima’s intestines.
28.
-150°F. Snow is a surprisingly good insulator, as those who live in igloos know. Also, transferring heat from a solid object, such as a mammoth’s body, to stagnant air is a slow process. Both conditions would exist if a mammoth fell into a crevasse. Steep crevasse walls would shield the body from cold winds, and glacial ice and stagnant air would insulate the mammoth from sharp drops in the outside temperature. Eventually, the carcass would freeze, but the residual heat in its huge body would delay freezing and cause putrefaction. Hoyle explains:
I have been informed that, today, when reindeer fall down crevasses in the Greenland ice, they are subsequently found to be in an unpleasantly putrefied condition. It seems that, no matter how cold the air is, the body heat of the dead animal is sufficient to promote bacterial decomposition.158
Warmer internal organs, such as the stomach, experience even more decay. Furthermore, this theory cannot begin to explain a sudden temperature drop to -150°F.
29.
Large Animals. The crevasse theory does not explain why primarily larger animals fell into icy crevasses and froze. Actually, the larger the animal, the greater its internal heat and the more the animal should decay.
30.
Animal Mixes. If an occasional mammoth fell into an ice crevasse, why are bones of so many kinds of animals found together? While some might argue that an adult mammoth climbed up a glacier, why would a rhinoceros or a baby, such as Dima, do so? A heavy, low-slung rhinoceros could not walk in deep snow. Beavers, squirrels, and birds do not fall into crevasses, but all have been found near frozen mammoths.
31.
Upright. Herz, who excavated and analyzed the Berezovka mammoth, felt it had fallen into a crevasse, because it had several broken bones, was frozen, and was found in an upright, although contorted, position. Normally, with a broken pelvis, a broken shoulder, a few broken ribs, and a crushed leg bone, he should have been lying on his side. However, a fall would rarely break bones in different parts of the body. To break so many bones requires many large forces acting from different directions. A blow received from a fall might explain a few fractures, but probably not all, especially the aligned, but crushed fractures of a leg.
32.
Other/Glaciers. Only a few mountains in northeastern Siberia show evidence of former glaciers.