A startling case was reported on Live Science, where Canadian gold miners spotted a 40,000-year-old mummified mammoth while panning for gold, and excited gold miners dug it out of the thawed tundra because it was worth as much as tens of kilograms of gold, maybe even higher!
But probably no one knows that as more and more animals emerge from the tundra, humans may face an unprecedented crisis!
The Siberian permafrost melted and a 30,000-year-old mammoth was found
Not long ago, workers at Treadstone Mining Company excavated the permafrost of Eureka Creek in the Klondike goldfield area of Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin, and it felt as if there was an obstacle when workers operating small excavation equipment were planning to take a second shovel.
It seemed to be a corpse, he ran over and touched it, as if it was still in some state of non-decay, most likely the remains of a prehistoric animal, which made the workers excited, often working in the Yukon region of Canada, absentees are particularly sensitive to prehistoric animals, once found to be intact animals, scientists will flock to buy research, which is worth more than gold.
The workers carefully dug the unknown animal out of the tundra, most of it was in good shape, it looked like an elephant, obviously modern elephants will not reach the Yukon in northern Canada, it is too cold for elephants living in the subtropics, then this animal that looks like an elephant should be a mammoth!
Experts from Treadstone Mining Took the Carcass of the animal, which was sent to the company's local headquarters, and after thawing it was found that most of the animal's body was still intact, the skin and muscles were very elastic, and from the appearance this was a mammoth cub that must have suffered misfortune shortly after birth!
After the news spread, Canada's top paleontologists came to the biological laboratory of The Threadstone Mining Company, conducted a detailed investigation, and found that the 1.4-meter-long mammoth cub was a female, only one month after death, about 42,000 years ago, and scientists named the mammoth "Nun cho ga", which means "big baby animal".
It is very likely that it fell into the mud while crossing the swamp at one time, and its mother must have tried to save it, but could not do anything about it! Soon after that, the arrival of the animals that were covered by the first autumn snow and eventually frozen in the permafrost layer and traveled through time and space to the present will surprise scientists, and of course, may also bring disaster.
Mammoth: A prehistoric giant that suddenly disappeared into the long river of history
Mammoths are covered with long brown hairs, the incisors are curved upwards, in addition to the long hairs and are very similar to modern elephants, mammoths originated in Africa, distributed in the early Pleistocene in Europe, Asia, the northern regions of North America, especially in the tundra zone, long body hair, there is a thick layer of fat to insulate the cold, from 5 million years ago until thousands of years ago to extinction.
There are several theories about the disappearance of mammoths, some sources believe that more than 10,000 years ago, the new fairy wood period, the northern hemisphere climate changed dramatically, from the warm and humid period to the ice age again led to the extinction of mammoths, but some paleontologists believe that human activities are more likely to be the main driver of mammoth extinction.
Why are scientists interested in ancient creatures?
Scientists have only been able to study paleontology through fossils, such as the dinosaur fossils currently unearthed, but scientists can't even determine whether dinosaurs have hair, because these tissues can easily disappear in the process of forming fossils.
Mammoths, however, are located tens of thousands of years ago during the glacial period, easily covered by ice and snow after death, and are located at high latitudes, and buried in the tundra will form a natural refrigerator until someone digs them out.
Due to the excellent low-temperature preservation effect of the tundra, the thawed mammoth is often the appearance of the mammoth shortly after death, whether it is skin or muscle, or hair, and even the parasites that parasitized the mammoth tens of thousands of years ago, and it eats plants and seeds that it has time to digest in the future.
The meat of prehistoric animals is said to be edible, and paleontologist Xing Lida once tasted it
Scientists can establish an ecological environment at that time according to the material extracted from a mammoth, plus the DNA of various animals and plants, scientists can outline their evolutionary veins, so in the eyes of scientists, this mammoth is not just an animal, but a window to spy on the environment and ecology tens of thousands of years ago, around this mammoth, scientists may even publish a number of high-quality SCI papers, and its value, many times, can not be measured by money.
Dr Grant Zazura, a paleontologist in the Yukon, said: "As an ice age paleontologist, coming face-to-face with a real mammoth is one of my lifelong dreams. That dream came true today. Nun cho ga is beautiful and is one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever found in the world. I'm excited to learn more about her.
Brian McCaughan, the Treadstone Mining Company that found mammoths, said: "There is one thing in a person's life that stands out the most, and I can assure you that this is the most prominent thing in my life." ”
On June 24, 2022, Yukon Online News published this great discovery, and in the coming months, Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin and the Yukon Government will work together to protect and understand Nun Cho Ga in a respectful manner and share these stories and information with the Dawson City community, Yukon residents, and the global scientific community.
Humans should be on the alert: the tundra has melted, and N species of animals have been discovered
Paleontologists are cheering for the discovery of prehistoric animals, as it represents not only a complement to the intact ecology of tens of thousands of years ago, but also a small climax in their personal academic careers, but climatologists and microbiologists are worried about another crisis.
Thawing of the Tundra Zone: The Consequences and Drivers of Climate Change
Although the mammoth in the Yukon is not the result of global warming, many of the animals recently found in the Permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere have been exposed after global warming, such as:
- In May 2007, Yuri Khudi and his three sons discovered a 41,800-year-old mammoth in the Yamal Peninsula of the Russian Arctic, named Lyuba by scientists, and the structure is very well preserved;
- In 2011, the Yukagir tribe in northern Siberia discovered the remains of a complete bison, which, like Lyuba, was favored by scientists for its very complete internal structure;
- In March 2015, a hunter found the remains of a juvenile long-haired rhinoceros (Phi Woolly Rhinoceros) by the Semyulyakh River in the Sakha Republic of Siberia, which was found on the ground after the tundra melted;
- In September 2017, a Russian man in Eastern Siberia looking for mammoth ivory accidentally discovered an Ice Age cave lion that was preserved in a cold permafrost for about 30,000 years and died only a week old;
- In August 2018, paleontologists discovered the mummy of a prehistoric pony in Yakutia, in an expedition to eastern Siberia, which was estimated to have lived about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago;
More and more ancient creatures have been unearthed to tell scientists that the permafrost in the Arctic is suffering extraordinary disasters! Permafrost is a permafrost layer underground at high latitudes or high altitudes, with thicknesses ranging from tens of centimeters to tens of meters, and the global permafrost covers an area of more than 5.9 million square kilometers, most of which are located in the northern hemisphere.
The temperature of the tundra belt is low, the moisture content is relatively high, generation after generation of plants wither, buried in the ground to become a permafrost layer, a large amount of organic carbon is sealed in the permafrost zone, due to low temperature, less microbial activity, hundreds of thousands of years almost intact preservation in the ground!
According to scientists' estimates, the organic carbon storage of the global tundra is 2 times the carbon content in the atmosphere, so scientists should be nervous when the tundra is affected by global warming, because global warming will accelerate the melting of the tundra, and the melting of the tundra will accelerate global warming, once this vicious circle is formed, then even if the global emission reduction target in the Paris Agreement reaches the target, the trend of global warming will remain unstoppable.
Ancient Microbes: The Tundra Time Machine travels back to the present
In addition to the more "distant" topic of global warming, what is even more frightening is the microorganisms carried by these unearthed animals, for now, we have antibiotics to deal with bacteria, and to deal with viruses rely on the immune system or vaccines, so far, humans and bacteria and viruses are still in a terrible balance.
But what if a superbug or virus appears and humans have no resistance? Human beings are currently exposed to bacteria and viruses in the modern environment, and for ancient bacteria and viruses that have crossed from tens of thousands of years ago to modern times, the human immune system may not be able to guard against it at all.
There may be no way! You can only wait for new antibiotics and make new vaccines, and this will take time! Just like COVID-19, which is currently circulating around the world, it is constantly spreading and mutating! Vaccines have been developed for generations, but they cannot prevent infection, but only reduce the rate of severe illness, which is really terrible.
Ancient bacteria and viruses: have been discovered
In 2014, French scientist Clavery published a paper describing a giant virus 30,000 years ago, 10 times larger than a conventional virus, discovered in siberian permafrost, and still contagious after resurrection!
In 2015, a team of Scientists from the United States and China drilled ice core samples in glaciers to find 28 viruses that are not modern, and although these viruses are not threatening to humans, the question is whether viruses that may affect humans after the thawing of large areas of permafrost in the future are the most worrying.
Anthrax outbreaks in Siberia in 2016 killed more than 2,000 reindeer and led to the hospitalization of 96 people, according to Russian experts, these anthrax spores came from the carcass of a reindeer that was released into the surrounding environment due to warm weather and thawing to infect any animal.
Is the constant discovery of permafrost a good thing or a bad thing? Should humanity be wary?