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Sort-of and no - we must distinguish between glaciers and the ice in
glaciers. Like the difference between rivers and the water
in rivers: it takes a few weeks for water to travel the
full length of the Mississippi river; however there has
been a Mississippi River for thousands of years. Likewise,
glaciers have existed in the mountains ever since the ice
age, but glacier flow moves the snow and ice through the
entire length of the glacier in 100 years or less. So,
most of the glacier ice in
Alaska is less than 100
years old! Therefore, most of the glacier ice is not
ice-age leftovers.
NOTE: There is "really old" ice near the bases of the
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and in a few special places in the world’s
mountains.
What
about the mammoths and giant bison found in ice?
The
remains of prehistoric animals are indeed found in ice,
but not glacier ice. Frozen fossil animals are found in
permafrost. Permafrost may be many tens of thousands of
years old.
But,
the Copper-Age "Iceman" found during 1991 in the European
Alps was "in a glacier."
Special circumstances preserved the Iceman. His body was
not destroyed when the site was over-ridden by a glacier
because it was near the edge of the glacier in a
protective bedrock depression. Had he truly been in
a glacier, he would have been ground to flour. |
