The Mythology of Frank C. Hibben and Alaskan Muck

The so-called "muck", which is found near Fairbanks and other
parts of Alaska is a favorite cliché piece of evidence for a terminal
Pleistocene catastrophe for catastrophists like Collins (2000),
Deloria (1997), Hapgood (1970), Allan and Delair (1995) and
Hawkins (2007). Such catastrophists love to quote either form
from Hibben's book "Lost Americans", Hibben (1946), or his
paper "Evidences of early man in Alaska", (Hibben 1934), which
was published in "American Antiquity" using what Dr. Frank C.
Hibben called "muck" as definitive evidence of a late Pleistocene
catastrophe. Hibben's muck also occurs on various web pages
advocating "pole shifts" and various other terminal Pleistocene
catastrophes.

If a person looks at the numerous scientific publications that have
been published in the scientific literature in the 62 years since
"Lost Americans" was published, a person finds that descriptions
made by Hibben (1946, 1951) of the Alaskan muck have **not**
been collaborated by any later researcher, i.e. Bettis et al. (2003),
Busacca et al. (2004), Muhs and Bettis (2003), Muhs et al. (2003),
Pewe (1955, 1975a, 1975b, 1989), Westgate et al. (1990, 2003), and
many others. They have all found that the "huge numbers of late
Pleistocene animal carcasses and splintered trees" reported
in Hibben (1946) and their mangled condition are grossly
overexaggerated by him and the various books and web pages that
cite Hibben (1943, 1946).

In the real world, the so-called "Alaskan muck" is a well-ordered,
layer-cake sequence of layers of loess, colluvium, and solifluction
deposits separated by paleosols, erosional unconformities, and
buried forests with in situ stumps. These layers are illustrated
by figures 20 and 29 of Pewe (1975b), figure 4 of Pewe
et al. (1997), and the measured sections of Westgate et al. (1990).
Within what Hibben (1943, 1946) refers to as the "Alaskan muck",
geologists readily recognized 7 well-defined, distinct layers. The
major layers are the Ready Bullion Formation, Engineer Loess,
Goldstream Formation, Gold Hill Loess, and the Fairbanks Loess. They
consist of silt, which have been demonstrated to consist of a
combination of wind-blown silt called "loess" and sediments moved
down-hill by slopewash and solifluction. Lying between these major
units are Dawson Cut and Eva Formations, which consist of buried
forests that are rooted in "fossil" soils, which are called
"paleosols". Lying buried beneath the loess and filling buried
valleys are gold-bearing stream gravels, which have been divided
into the Tanana Formation, Fox Gravel, and Cripple Gravel. These
layers are jumbled only where the have been disturbed by either
thermokarst, landslides, solifluction, gold mining, or some
combination of these processes (Bettis et al. 2003; Busacca et al.
2004; Muhs and Bettis 2003; Muhs et al. 2003; Pewe 1955, 1975a,
1975b, 1989; Westgate et al. 1990, 2003). As summarized by Bettis
et al. (2003), Busacca et al. (2004), and Muhs and Bettis (2003),
the Alaskan muck consists of layers of loess, colluvium, and
solifluction deposits that have periodically accumulated over the
last 3.5 million years. These layers are separated by paleosols
and unconformities that formed during long periods when sediments
did not accumulate. Locally,the uppermost part of the so-called
"Alaskan muck" of Hibben (1943, 1946) is Holocene in age and
still accumulating (Muhs and Bettis 2003).

In much the same way that Hibben (1946) paints a completely false
picture of the bones of mammoth and other megafauna being found
in boxcar-load quantities, it also gets carried away with a gross
overexaggeration of the facts while engaged in speculative and
fallacious arm waving about the terminal Pleistocene extinction
within Nebraska. As noted by Eisley (1947), while writing about
great bone deposits of terminal Pleistocene age and allegedly found
in Nebraska, Hibben (1946) incorrectly states:

“...where we find literally thousands of these remains together...
whole herds overcome by some common power.”

However, pages before that, Hibben (1946) completely contradicts
itself when it states:

“In the Plains area...where fossil bones have been found, they
usually turn up in small quantities and in fragile condition.”

In this review, Eisley (1947) concludes that Hibben (1946) “in his
popular writing has a penchant for the sweeping statement and in
the realm of the spectacular which occasionally gets a little out of
hand.” and “...ignores scientific caution for the sake of his story.”

In yet another case, archaeologists went back to Chinitna Bay, as
reported in detail by Thorson (1978, 1980), to relocate a Paleo-
Indian Site described by Hibben (1943) because they regarded it
to be significant find. After a long search and much digging,
they found that the Paleo-Indian Site, a layer of "Alaskan muck"
overlying it, and sediments old enough to have contained either
it or the mammoths bones reported to have been found at the site
were nonexistent. Thorson (1978, 1980) discovered that the layer
of "Alaskan muck" that Hibben (1943) identified at the location of
his imaginary Palo-Indian site consists of layers of oxidized
marine muds and salt marsh deposits. In situ wood samples from a
blue-grey clay, which underlie the layer that Hibben (1943) claimed
contained Paleo-Indian artifacts yielded two C-14 dates. They are a
date of 375+/-120 radiocarbon years: 1575 A.D. (GX-5655) and a
date of 300 +/-130 radiocarbon years: 1650 A.D. (GX-5656) (Myer
1980; Thorson 1978, 1980).

Using detailed directions, which Hibben had provided them in
personal correspondence for their research and photographs, which
Hibben had taken of the site and finds. Thorson et al. (1978, 1980)
were able to precisely pinpoint the exact location of Hibben’s
alleged Paleo-Indian site and mammoth finds. Thorson et al. (1978,
1980) were able to determine from Hibben's own photographs that they
digging at the exact location that Hibben (1943) claimed to have
found the Paleo-Indian points and mammoth bones and there had
been an insignificant modification of the coast by coastal erosion.
Finally, they were able to match layer for layer the stratigraphy
observed by Hibben (1943) with the stratigraphy, which they observed.
It is clear that Hibben (1943) was completely wrong about the age and
origin of sediments and presence of a Paleo-Indian Site. Hibben
(1943) mistook modern Eskimo points for Paleo-Indian artifacts
as suggested by Bever (2001). Where Hibben (1943) actually found
the mammoth bones is still a matter of discussion. In case, of his
imaginary Paleo-Indian Site at Chinitna Bay, it is quite clear that
Dr. Hibben, having his expertise in the landforms and sediments of
the hot arid Southwestern United States, was simply inexperienced
and incompetent in the description and interpretation of the geology
and archaeology of polar and periglacial landforms and sediments
that are found within Alaska. As a result of this and other mishaps,
Dalton (2003) stated about Dr. Frank Hibben:

"Scientific publications over the past 25 years have questioned
or disproved several of his most noted discoveries."

Even Hibben (1943) clearly contradicts Hibben (1946). For
example, Hibben (1943) states:

"The deposits known as muck may be definitely described, in the
opinion of the writer, as loess material. All characteristics seem to
indicate a wind-borne origin from comparatively local sources, as
the material resembles local bedrock. The outwash plains of the
local glaciations are likely points of origin for this material.
These mucks deposits are from four to one hundred feet thick and
are especially well known in the vicinity of Fairbanks, Circle , and
other gold mining centers of the Upper Yukon and the Tanana
where the muck overlies auriferous gravels."

Contrary to what is stated in Hibben (1946), Hibben (1943) clearly
concluded that the vast majority of his "muck" deposits consist of
wind-blown loess and related colluvial and solifluction deposits.

Hibben (1943) also noted:

"Twisted and torn trees are piled in splintered masses concentrated
in what must be regarded as ephemeral canyons or arroyo cuts."

and

“However, areas in which peat layers occur indicate a stabilization
of certain portions of the muck for at least a period of several
years and forests of trees found in certain areas give evidence of
even more lengthy periods of stabilization. It thus appears that the
formation of the Alaskan mucks is complex and that all of these
depositions were certainly not made at a single time.”

Again Hibben (1943) vastly contradicts Hibben (1946) by stating
his piled and splintered masses of vegetation and animals comprise
only a very very minor part of his"Alaskan muck" and that his
“Alaskan muck” consists of sediments that accumulated episodically
over a long period of time. It is also interesting that he writes
about "ephemeral canyons or arroyo cuts", as it indicates that he
is interpreting polar periglacial permafrost deposits in terms of
processes that characterize hot arid desert environments that are
totally devoid of permafrost. It is now known that his “splintered
masses of vegetation fill depressions and ravines created by the
periodic melting of permafrost, called “thermokarst”, during
interglacial epochs or interstadial periods.

Having seen the splintered masses of vegetation that are described
by Hibben (1946) as the result of a global catastrophe, Canadian
geologist, Dr. Andrew MacRae, who unlike Dr. Hibben, has expertise
in how the formation and melting of permafrost can deform sediments,
stated about the “Alaskan muck” in Macrae (1996):

"Wow. Debris flows. Slumps initiated by permafrost melt. Crevasse
fills in permafrost. The question is not whether or not this is
evidence of a "catastrophe", it is why on Earth authors who cite
this material interpret non-stratified, poorly-stratified, "jumbled"
deposits with disarticulated skeletons as evidence of a global
catastrophe? It is a stretch, to say the least. It is far from the
only mechanism which could produce a deposit with these features.
There are many modern processes, which can produce equivalent
deposits "jumbled together in no discernable order", and many of
these processes occur in Alaska and other arctic areas today
(including Siberia). How do you propose eliminating these other
processes as a possibility in order that a "catastrophe" of regional
or global scope becomes the only viable hypothesis? Many authors
which cite this material as evidence do not even bother mentioning
the alternatives."

The vast majority of “splintered” vegetation is restricted in
occurrence to the Dawson Cut and Eva formations. The Eva Formation
consists of a 0.5 to 1 meter-thick bed of peat and redeposited loess
containing in situ tree stumps, logs, branches, wood fragments, and
carbonized wood belonging to the Eva Forest Bed. The Eva Forest Bed
is the buried remains of an Arctic boreal forest. Radiocarbon dates of
42,410 (Beta 46,130) and  41,200 (Beta 33,074) were obtained from
the wood from the Eva Forest Bed. Thus, it is over 42,000 years old.
Thermoluminescence dating of the loess above and below it
demonstrated that the Eva Forest Bed was 125,000 years old as
discussed in detail by Berger and Pewe (2001) and Pewe et al. (1997).
Because it dates to the last interglacial period, the Eva Forest Bed
cannot be considered valid evidence of terminal Pleistocene Earth
Crustal Displacement. The forest bed that occurs within the Dawson
Cut Formation is 2 million years old as demonstrated by dates
obtained by Westgate et al. (2003) from the Palisades volcanic ash
(tephra). The in situ tree trunks, logs, branches, and splintered
wood associated with this forest bed, because they date to an
interglacial period and are so old, also cannot be considered valid
evidence of a terminal Pleistocene Earth Crustal Displacement

(Notes: For more information a person can read “Vegetation and
Paleoclimate of the Last Interglacial Period, Central Alaska” at:
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/lite/alaska/alaska.html .

A Picture of 2 million year-old wood from the Dawson Cut Forest
Bed can be found at http://www.rmtrr.org/gallery.html .)

Volcanic ash beds also occur in the so-called “Alaskan muck” of
Hibben (1943, 1946). They have been dated by Muhs et al. (2001),
Pewe et al. (1997), Preece et al. (1999), Westgate (1990), and
Westgate et al (2003) using fission-track dating. The fission-track
dates obtained from the ash beds (tephras) were collaborated by
simultaneous magnetostratigraphic dating of the loess. A list of
dates obtained from dating the regionally significant volcanic ash
beds (tephras) found in the “Alaskan muck” of Hibben (1943, 1946) is:

Ash Bed (Tephra) - Age

HP Tephra -  61,000 BP
SP Tephra - 86,000 BP
Dome Ash - 140,000 BP
Old Crow Tephra - 190,000 BP
Ester Ash Bed - 810,000 BP
WP Tephra - 1,030,000 BP
Palisades Tephra - 2,020,000 BP

As the above dates demonstrate, none of the major region volcanic
beds, which are found in the “Alaskan muck” of Hibben (1943, 1946)
date to the end of the Pleistocene. Except for the Old Crow Tephra,
they all are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions
of years older then Hibben (1943, 1946) guessed them to be.

The wide spread of ages for these ash beds (tephras) has significant
implications. First, they are neither the result of a terminal
Pleistocene catastrophe as suggested by Hibben (1943, 1946),
Hapgood (1970), and others nor the same catastrophe. As
independently collaborated by both the magnetostratigraphy and
thermoluminescence dating of the loess, they demonstrate that the
"Alaskan muck" accumulated periodically over millions of years and
completely refute the intrepretaions of  Hibben (1943, 1946),
Hapgood (1970) and other that it accumulated as the result a single
terminal Pleistocene catastrophe.

There is also a wide variation in the radiocarbon dates obtained from
the mummified mammal remains recovered from what Hibben called
the Alaskan Loess as seen in Table 13 of Pewe (1975a). For example,
radiocarbon dates of mummified mammoth remains were dated at
21,300±1300 and 32,700±980; a mummified horse at 26,760±300,
mummified bison at 11,735±130, 12,460±320,  35,000, 5340±110,
29,295±2,440,  39,000, 21,065±1,365, 18,000±200,  28,000,
31,400±2,040, 17,170±840, 20,445±885, 31,980±4,490,
16,400±2,000,
and 11,980±135. The wide spread of radiocarbon dates for mummified
mammal remains demonstrate that they neither died as the result of
a single catastrophic event nor had they died and were buried by a
single terminal Pleistocene catastrophe.

The numerous scientific publications that have been published
in the past 62 years since “Lost Americans” was published clearly
discredit the interpretations made by Hibben (1946) about the
manner and age origin of the “Alaskan muck”. It would be
scientific malpractice in the future, as past authors of books and
web pages have done in the past, to mistake any of it for having
any scientific validity at all. Even Hibben (1943) contradicts and
discredits some of what was written in Hibben (1946).

References Cited

Allan, D. S., and J. B. Delair, 1995, When the Earth Nearly Died,
Compelling Evidence of a Catastrophic World Change 9,500 BC.
Gateway Books. Bath, United Kingdom.

Bettis, E. A., D. R. Muhs, H. M. Robert, and A. G. Wintle, 2003,
Last Glacial loess in the conterminous USA.Quaternary Science
Reviews. vol. 22, no. 18-19, pp. 1907-1946.

Berger G.W., and T. L. Pewe, 2001, Last Interglacial age of the Eva
Forest Bed, Central Alaska, from thermoluminescence dating of
bracketing loess Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 20, pp. 485-498.

Bever, M. R., 2001, An Overview of Alaskan Late Pleistocene
Archaeology: Historical Themes and Current Perspectives.
Journal of World Prehistory. vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 121-191.

Busacca, A. J., J. E. Beget, H. W. Markewich, D. R. Muhs, N.
Lancaster, and M. R. Sweeney, M.R., 2004, Eolian Sediments. In
Gillespie, A.R., Porter, S.C., and Atwater, B.F, eds., pp. 275-309.
The Quaternary Period in the United States: Amsterdam, Elsevier,

Collins, A., 2000, Gateway to Atlantis: The Search for the Source
of a Lost Civilization. Carroll and Graf Publishers. New York,
New York.

Dalton, R., 2003, University buildings named on shaky ground.
Nature. vol. 426, no. 6965, p. 374.

Deloria, Vine, Jr., 1997, Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans
and the Myth of Scientific Fact. Fulcrum Publishing. Golden, Colorado.

Eisley, Loren C., 1947, Review: The Case of the Missing Body.
The Scientific Monthly. vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 182-183

Hapgood, C. H., 1970, The Path of The Pole. Chilton Book
Company. New York, New York.

Hawkins, E., 2007, Secret History of Twin Planet Earth. Trafford
Publishing, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V9B 5Z3

Hibben, Frank C., 1943, Evidences of early man in Alaska.
American Antiquity. vol. 8, no.3, pp. 254-259.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/275906

Hibben, Frank C., 1946. Lost Americans. Crowell. New York,
New York.

MacRae, A., 1996, Re: New www page on mammoths. Message-ID:
4djp6e$h9e@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca , Sci.skeptic USENET group.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.skeptic/msg/9c5f2ba205632520
Personal web page -  http://www.stmarys.ca/academic/science/geology/bios/an
drew_macrae.html
very old web page -  http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/

Myers, T. P., 1980, Current research. American Antiquity. vol. 45,
no. 1, pp. 182-199.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/279675

Muhs, D.R., and E. A. Bettis, III, 2003, Quaternary loess-paleosol
sequences as examples of climate-driven sedimentary extremes. In
Extreme Depositional Environments: Mega End Members in Geologic
Time. M. A. Chan and A. w. Archer, eds., pp. 53-74. Geological
Society of America Special Paper no. 370.
PDF file -  http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/eolian/MuhsBettis2003GSAsp370.pdf

Muhs, D. R., T. A. Ager, and J. E. Beget, J. E., 2001, Vegetation and
paleoclimate of the last interglacial period, central Alaska
Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 20, no. 1-3, pp. 41-61.
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/eolian/Muhs2001QSR.pdf

Muhs, D. R., T. A. Ager, E. A. Bettis, III, J. McGeehin, J. M. Been,
J. E. Beget, M. J. Pavich, T. W. Stafford, Jr., D. S. P. and Stevens,
2003, Stratigraphy and paleoclimatic significance of late Quaternary
loess-paleosol sequences of the last interglacial-glacial cycle in
central Alaska: Quaternary Science Reviews, v. 22, p. 1947-1986.
PDF file -  http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/research/alaska/PDF/MuhsAger2003QSRstrat
.pdf

Pewe, T. L., 1955, Origin of the upland silt near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 699-724.

Pewe, T. L., 1975a, Quaternary Geology of Alaska. U.S. Geological
Survey Professional Paper 835, 145 pp. http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/pp/
pp835

Pewe, T. L., 1975b, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Central
Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper  no. 862, 32 pp.
http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/pp/pp862
PDF file -   http://www.dggs.dnr.state.ak.us/webpubs/usgs/p/text/p0862.PDF
DJVU file -   http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/djvu/PP/pp_862.djvu

Pewe, T. L., 1989, Quaternary stratigraphy of the Fairbanks area,
Alaska. In Carter, L. D., T. D. Hamilton, and J. P. Galloway, eds.,
pp. 72-77. Late Cenozoic History of the Interior Basins of Alaska
and the Yukon. U.S. Geological Survey Circular no. 1026.
http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/cir/cir1026
DJVU file -  http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/djvu/CIR/circ_1026.djvu

Péwé, T.L., G. W. Berger, J. A. Westgate, P. M. Brown, and S. W.
Leavitt, 1997, Eva Interglaciation Forest Bed, Unglaciated East-
Central Alaska: Global Warming 125,000 Years Ago. Geological
Society of America Special Paper no. 319.
http://www.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=search&pID
=SPE319

Pewe, T. L., Berger, G. W., Westgate, J. A., Brown, P. A., and
Leavitt, S. W., 1997, Eva Interglacial Forest Bed, Unglaciated
East-Central Alaska. Geological Society of America Special
Paper no. 319, 54 pp.

Preece, S. J., J. A. Westgate, B. A. Stemper, and T. L. Pewe, 1999,
Tephrochronology of late Cenozoic loess at Fairbanks, central Alaska.
Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 111, no. 1, pp. 71-90.
http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/1/71

Thorson, R. M., D. C. Plaskett and E. J. Dixon, 1978, Chinitna Bay
cultural resource study-The geology and archeology of the southern
shore of Chinitna Bay, Alaska. University of Alaska Museum,
Fairbanks, Alaska.

Thorson, R. M., D. C. Plaskett and E. J. Dixon, 1980, A reported
early-man site adjacent to southern Alaska's continental shelf:
A geologic solution to an archeologic enigma. Quaternary
Research. vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 259-273.

Westgate, J. A., B. A. Stemper, T. L. and Pewe, 1990, A 3 m.y.
record of Pliocene-Pleistocene loess in interior Alaska. Geology.
vol. 18, no. 9, p. 858-861.

Westgate, J. A., S. J. Preece, and T. L. Pewe, 2003, The Dawson
Cut Forest Bed in the Fairbanks area, Alaska, is about two million
years old. Quaternary Research. vol. 60, no. 1, Pages 2-8.

More information on loess

U.S. Geological Survey, 2006, Eolian History of North America
Why is loess important to study?
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/eolian/task2.html

The above web page has a list reference, a number of which can
be downloaded as PDF files.

anonymous, 2006, The Secret of China’s Vast Loess Plateau.
Suburban Emergency Management Project, Chicago, Illinois.
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_printview.php?BiotID=357

anonymous, 2007, New European Loess Map. Helmholtz Centre
for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=15536

anonymous, nd, Glacial Deposits: Loess and Till. Illinois State
Museum, Springfield, Illinois.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/loess.html

anonymous, nd, The Loess Hills of Western Iowa
http://www.nfinity.com/~exile/loesspg.htm

Heinrich, P.V., 2008, Loess map of Louisiana. Public Information
Series. no. 12, Louisiana Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
http://www.lgs.lsu.edu/deploy/uploads/Loess%20Map%20of%20LA.pdf

Yours,

Douglas
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