The Lost Pleistocene World of the Georges Bank

I’m taking an imaginary vacation this week away from southeastern North America to visit one of the few ice free spots in the northeast during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Georges Bank used to be one of the richest fisheries in the world.  During the LGM it was an extension of the mainland inhabited by many species of megafauna.

East of the Gulf of Maine the sea floor rises 330 feet.  Both cold and warm currents sweep over this submerged island, and light can reach the shallow bottom which ranges between 10-50 feet deep.  The light and the mixture of currents create an ideal habitat for a rich zone of phytoplankton.  The phytoplankton  is the foundation of a food chain that feeds over 100 species of fish, and the gravel bottom, eroded from glacier-pushed rocks, provides excellent spawning structure.  One of the richest fisheries in the world used to be found here before fleets of international factory ships decimated the naturally abundant stocks in the 20th century.  Long before Basque fishermen discovered this amazing fishing ground in the 11th century, the Georges Bank existed as a special and beautiful part of the North American mainland.

20,000 years ago, a massive glacier, one mile thick, depressed the entire area of what’s now New England.  The weight of all that ice literally pushed the earth’s crust down.  Glaciers from previous Ice Ages had already gouged a trough off what today is Maine’s coast, explaining why the Gulf of Maine is so deep.  The most recent glacier, the Laurentide, advanced over the dried-out trough toward the receding Atlantic Ocean.  The ocean was receding because so much of the world’s water was becoming locked up as ice.  But on the narrow strip of higher land in the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean, the climate was warmer, perhaps keeping the glacier at bay.

The Georges Bank was an extension of the mainland, 140 miles long and 75 miles wide.  It was bounded on one side by the enormous glacier, and on the other by the ocean.  The climate consisted of cool summers, thanks to the monstrous ice cube next door, and snowy but bearable winters because moderating oceanic winds prevented temperatures from plummeting as low as occurred farther inland.

Icebergs drift off shore here within site of the sand dunes where beach grass, beach pea, and bayberry grow.  Walruses swim to and fro from small ice floes to the beach.  Behind the beach dunes, brackish lagoons host ducks and geese and loons.  Forests of pine, spruce, fir, birch, and alder cover most of the island, interrupted here and there with cranberry bogs.  Grassy windswept steppes are located on the northern part of the island and on nearby Sable Island.

Tim Wichinbach dredged up this partial mastodon tusk while fishing for scallops over the Georges Bank.  Fishermen have accidentally caught Pleistocene fossils in their nets in more than 40 sites on the Georges Bank.  The list of accidental bycatch includes fossils of mastodon, mammoth, woodland musk-ox, stag-moose, long-nosed peccary, walrus, bearded seal, and wood from ancient forests.  Reportedly, tapir and ground sloth bones have also been dredged, but I can’t find documentation in the scientific literature.  A good comprehensive catalogue of Georges Bank fossils has not been published.  Information is limited to 3 old articles from very obscure scientific journals.

An early October snowstorm covers a north facing slope, yellow grass tufts stick above the white layer.  A herd of dwarf mammoths and lean musk-oxen graze on the grass, the mammoths clearing the snow with their tusks.  The horns on the musk-oxen cover their skulls like football helmets.  Closer to a forest edge in a low lying area on the other side of the slope, steam rises from a bog.  A huge solitary stag-moose stands ankle deep, a mouthful of green slime hangs from his mouth.  I think it’s a clump of duckweed.  In the open forest mastodons use their trunks to tear branches from young spruce and red pine saplings.  I can hear them grind the cellulose between their giant molars.  One of the hairy elephants has an itchy hindquarter.  He backs up against a jack pine and rubs, but it’s a dead rotten tree, and it snaps and falls over, startling a spruce grouse which flies away in panic.

5,000 years later, the climate warms, and the Laurentide glacier melts as rapidly as 300 meters a year.  Birch forests colonize the newly available land, and the animals follow, but soon, rising sea levels inundate not only the Gulf of Maine, but areas of the coast that are currently above sea level, including the future sites of Augusta and Bangor.  As the heavy weight of the glacier recedes, the land area of Maine rebounds because there is nothing pressing the earth’s crust down here any more.  This is known as isostatic rise.  Meanwhile, the Georges Bank has become a true island, surrounded by ocean water on all sides.  Eventually, sea levels rise more, dooming the animals that didn’t migrate west.  The Grand Banks to the north also falls below sea level.  Only a small spit of sand, the highest point of Sable Island, still remains above sea level in this region.

A Sad Timeline of the Rape of the Georges Bank Fishery

The Georges Bank was an astonishingly rich fishery.  When first discovered by Basque fishermen around 1000 AD, they kept it a secret for over 500 years.  Cod were so abundant fishermen could just stick a basket in the water and 50 pound cod would fill it immediately.  Early colonists living near Cape Cod complained about having to eat lobster every night.  The cod take continued to remain strong until the 20th century when industrial ships from all over the world caught thousands of tons of fish.  Finally, in 1977 the U.S. banned foreign trawlers but it was too late.  American fishermen continued to overfish and now there’s little left–a testament to man’s shortsighted greed.  It’s another sickening example of poor natural resource management.

1830–Right whales nearly exterminated

1850–Halibut disappear

1977–Herring fishery collapses

1994–Commercial cod fishing collapses.  Law passed to outlaw commercial cod fishing proves ineffective.  It’s still not policed.

In my opinion all commercial fishing on the Georges Bank should be banned for 20 years.  Maybe then, it would recover.

Seals and Walruses off Southeastern North America’s Pleistocene Coast

Scientists expressing concern about anthropogenic global warming always seem to ignore paleontological evidence.  There is no better example of their alarmist approach than the oft-stated fear that global warming might cause the extinction of arctic marine mammals.  Yet, during the Sangamonian Interglacial (~132,000-~118,000 BP) the north polar ice cap completely melted, and there are no known extinctions of arctic marine mammals when this occurred.  Pleistocene ranges of seals and walruses were greatly expanded compared to the extent of where they live now.  And during both cold and warm climate cycles marine mammals occurred much farther south than they do today.  It’s more likely that their ranges are more limited today due to anthropogenic overhunting rather than changes in climate.  Evidence of my above-stated observation comes from fossils of seals and walruses found off the coast of South Carolina.

Gray Seal–Halichoerus grypus

Photo of gray seal from google images.  This species occurred at least as far south as South Carolina during the Pleistocene.  Now that they’re protected, it’s believed their range will expand farther south than New Jersey once again.

Fossils of this species have been found on Edisto Beach, South Carolina.  Until the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, bounties kept the population of gray seals low, reducing them to 2,000 individuals on the North American side of the north Atlantic.  Since then, the population has expanded south to New Jersey where they frequently resort during winter.  They’re expected to spread even further south and may some day recolonize South Carolina.  They eat fish, lobster, and octopus.

Hooded Seal–Erignathus barbatus

Hooded seal from a picture at google images.  Man are they ugly.  The balloon on the males’ nose is used to attract mates.

Hooded seal flipper bone fossil found off the South Carolina coast.  All the pictures of fossils in this blog entry are from Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Fossils of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia by Albert Sanders.

The above fossil flipper bone was recovered in Horry County, South Carolina and is believed to be Sangamonian in age.  This solitary species mostly occurs in the arctic but is known to wander widely and has been reported in modern times as far south as the Carribbean.  Perhaps this specimen belonged to one such straggler.

Walurs–Odobenus romarus

Photo of a walrus from google images.

Fragments of walrus tusk fossils  discovered off the coast of South Carolina.

At least 6 fragments of fossil walrus tusks have been recovered from sites near Charleston, South Carolina, proving this species lived in the southeast long ago.  Moreover, one amateur fossil collector reports finding a walrus fossil in Florida.  Other walrus fossils turned up in North Carolina and Virginia, so at one time they must have been frequent visitors to southern beaches.  Most of the walrus fossils are assumed to be from a warm interglacial age because they’re found near the present day coast.  During glacial times, the Atlantic coast was many miles to the east of the present day coast due to the drop in sea level during the Ice Age.  I have no doubt walruses are solely limited to arctic regions today because of the remote geography where they’re difficult for human hunters to access.

Walruses mostly eat marine worms and molluscs which they find on the ocean floor with their whiskers.  Male walruses occasionally kill or scavenge and eat seals.  This behavior is probably related to high testosterone levels, much like male elephants that go on a rampage when they’re in the mood to mate.

Monk Seal–Monachus tropicalis

It’s sad to think that this is the only evidence left of a species once frequenting Georgia’s coast.  It’s a vertebrate of a monk seal.

Man hunted this warm climate seal into extinction by 1952.  It’s last reported sighting was off the coast of Jamaica.  It was last reported off the coast of Texas in the 1930’s.  One fossil collector  found bones of a monk seal on Andrews Island near Brunswick, Georgia, and others have found them at many sites off the coast of South Carolina.  What a shame the species couldn’t make it to 1972 when the Marine Mammal Protection Act passed.

Reference

Sanders, Albert

Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Faunas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia

American Philosophical Society 2002