Year 11 Day 165

Greenland-musk-ox hg.jpg
“Greenland-musk-ox hg” by Hannes Grobe), AWI – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

Remember the part of the tideless sea that reminded me of an underwater mountain range? I didn’t even know what I was talking about!

The northern shore of the main north continent was at least fairly well defined. During the warm season I could tell water from land, though when the ocean was frozen to the shore it was a little difficult. Eastward from the strait, though ….

Imagine a partly drowned mountain range. Not one with just the tips of the mountains poking up as islands, but one with all of the valleys drowned. Let it be so cold and so dry that little survives but rock and cushion plants. Allow some surprisingly large horned animals to survive on the sparce vegetation. Now add a highly variable amount of drift ice choking the water-filled valleys.

I don’t think that a lot of warm water could get through.

So, hypotheses: this ocean remains frozen because there is not enough oceanic heat transfer from the south.