Ancient Rocks Boost Case for Mini Ice Age linked to Fall of Rom

Cliffs transported from Greenland to Iceland by icebergs add to evidence that the climate in Europe was given much for a century or two starting AD 540 – a “mini ice age” that may have played a role in the fall of the new empire.

This cold period in the Northern Hemisphere, which has previously been indicated by studies of wooden rings and sediment kernels, has been linked to a number of historical events around the world, from the collapse of northern Wei dynasty in China to the decline of the city state Teotihuacan in Central America. Justinian plague affecting the eastern Roman empire after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 may also have been caused by a colder climate.

Christopher Spencer at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and his colleagues decided to explore a beach on the west coast of Iceland because satellite images showed that it was light colored rather than the basic black of almost all other beaches in Iceland.

The light color turned out to be for the presence of lots of shells, but while walking in the area, Spencer discovered cobblestone-size granite stones. For him, it was immediately clear that these cliffs did not stand from Iceland. “It’s a little embarrassing how easy it was to make the discovery,” he says.

Of course, an analysis of the rocks confirmed that they came from many different places in Greenland, which are about 300 kilometers away from Iceland on the nearest points. This means that the rocks that Spencer found must have been carried by icebergs calfing from glaciers in Greenland and washing up on the beach.

The layer of the beach, where the Greenlandic cliffs are present, has previously been a date to make 700 AD. to 700 AD, says Spencer. While icebergs from Greenland still reach this area Okkalt, Greenland’s rocks are not found in any other layer of the beach.

So the discovery shows that a large number of Greenlandic icebergs wash up on this beach during the period when this layer -shaped shaped. This suggests that due to working conditions, Greenland’s glaciers became larger and calved many more icebergs during this period, says Spencer.

This binds nicely with evidence of a working period that is sometimes called the old latetel an age of age. The reason for this event is unclear – some think it was triggered by volcanoes, others of fragments of a comet beating soil. Spencer thinks it was easy to orbital change how much of the sun’s heat reaches the ground.

While the extent to which the climate contributing to events such as the Rome Fall remains discussed, there is growing evidence that climate change was shaping the fate of Mary civilizations.