How to flash freeze a mammoth?

Originally posted by RuneSpider
Mammoths were not flash frozen, that's something of a urban legend.
Most fell on frozen ground, and were preserved in the permafrost.
They are found well preserved, about the same as you'd find if you put something in a freezer for several years.
I remember vaguely that a young mammoth was found that had drowed, and was extremely well preserved again froze in permafrost.

RuneSpider is correct. I work with some people who work with the folks who work with mammoths.

The "flash frozen" is an urban myth. They are found well preserved, and quite frozen... but no flash freezing. Some have partially thawed as they moved closer to the surface.

I was also under the impression that the whole flash-frozen thing was a bit of a myth. In any case, I came up with a completely non-professional theory whilst reading this.

I watched a documentary on Disco channel the other day about toxic lakes, which have caused entire villages to be killed almost instantly. The way these things work is that when a large body of water builds up in a volcanic crater, or other area with seismic activity, small vents at the bottom of the lakes spray carbon dioxide into the water. However, with some lakes the water pressure at the bottom is so strong that the co2 cannot rise to the surface as bubbles but dissolves into the water, specifically the bottom layers of the water. Eventually you have an incredible co2 rich layer of water underneath a seemingly ordinary body of water, and in some instances these layers can be disturbed so that the co2 layer emerges, expelling huge amounts of the gas into the air which drifts through settlements asphyxiating people.

A similar thing could happen with the atmosphere, whereby a fairly warm layer of air forms near the earth which puts pressure on the upper atmosphere, which is forced to rise and cool more. As we know that different temperature air doesn't mix, this situation could remain static for some time before an event such as a small asteroid collision causes an area through which the cold air could sink and the hot air rise with violent force. The cold air might stream downwards freezing things fairly rapidly.

Not sure if this is very plausible...

Maybe the cause was a sudden climate change caused by a cataclysmic event.

New scientific findings suggest that a large comet may have exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, explaining riddles that scientists have wrestled with for decades, including an abrupt cooling of much of the planet and the extinction of large mammals.

www.physorg.com...

The Mammoth was flash frozen. I have a tough time accepting the "storm" quick freeze scenario. Animals don't graze during a brutal storm.

Something altered the planets atmosphere very quickly and without disturbing the grazing Mammoth. Whatever happened occured instantly without any warning.

What would happen if the ozone layer briefly disrupted (say during a polar shift)? Without that layer of protection - the side of the planet facing away from the sun would flash freeze and the side facing the sun would scorch.

Next question - Would a mammoth be eating at night? Turns out that elephants don't sleep all that much. www.theatlantic.com...

a reply to: Indy

The “magnetocaliric effect” is where my mind is at on this question. There are materials that get cold when exposed to a magnetic field. They are researching how to do this for refrigeration to save money.

But that is specific materials and not an entire body. Let alone a mammoth.

So, if the magnetic field collapses, it would try and reconnect. What if either event has the effect of stopping movement of atoms? It would be like hitting absolute zero.

The problem with this line of thought is that magnetic reconnection generates a lot of energy (one way of kick starting a nuclear fusion reactor is to allow this to happen to the hydrogen isotopes and you hit 10-15 million degrees). Plus the earth’s magnetic field is not that strong.

Search term: magnetic refrigeration