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Canadian geologists say they can shed light on how a vast lake, trapped under the ice sheet that once smothered much of North America, drained into the sea, an event that cooled Earth's climate for hundreds of years. During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet once covered most of Canada and parts of the northern United States with a frozen crust that in some places was three kilometres (two miles) thick. As the temperature gradually rose some 10,000 years ago, the ice receded, gouging out the hollows that would be called the Great Lakes. Beneath the ice's thinning...

Fish Studies Answer Flood Question by Brian Thomas, M.S.* According to the Bible, the world before Noah’s Flood, including the oceans, must have been idyllic. That was destroyed by the year-long global deluge, during which the earth’s land mass broke into continents, massive amounts of sediment were deposited and then partially eroded, and new and perhaps deeper oceans became more salty from continental runoff. If this historical picture is accurate, then at least one area of confusion needs to be addressed: How did “saltwater fish” live through all that?...

Three Gorges Dam, Chinese Pollution Threatens to Turn West Sea into ‘Dead Sea’ With China’s construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangzi River and rapid construction of industrial complexes in China’s eastern regions, some are pointing out that the West Sea (Yellow Sea) could soon become a “Dead Sea” as contaminated materials flow into the body of water. When construction on the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009, the amount of fresh water emptying into the West Sea from the Yangzi River would diminish and raise the salinity of the sea, bringing about changes in ecology. With...

Tropical ocean waters have become dramatically saltier over the past 40 years, while oceans closer to Earth's poles have become fresher, scientists reported today in the journal Nature. Earth's warming surface may be intensifying evaporation over oceans in the low latitudes -- raising salinity concentrations there -- and transporting more fresh water vapor via the atmosphere toward Earth's poles. These large-scale, relatively rapid oceanic changes suggest that recent climate changes, including global warming, may be altering the fundamental planetary system that regulates evaporation and precipitation and cycles fresh water around the globe. The study was conducted by Ruth Curry, a...