The massive, violent hail storm buried mammoths and rhinoceroses alive, many standing up and compressed from all sides. Babies, such as Dima, were flattened. Exposed parts of adult bodies, unsupported by bone, were vertically flattened. Sometimes even strong bones were crushed by axial compression. Encasement in muddy ice maintained the alignment of Berezovka's leg bone as it was crushed lengthwise.
Ice slowly flows downhill as, for example, in glaciers.
The hydroplate theory states that the frozen animals were buried in muddy hail as the flood began. During the following months, sedimentary layers and their fossils were deposited on top of this ice and sorted by liquefaction. One should never find marine fossils, layered strata, oil, coal seams, or limestone directly beneath undisturbed rock ice or frozen mammoth carcasses. This is a severe test for this theory, because a few crude geologic maps of Siberia imply that marine fossils lie within several miles of the frozen remains. Sedimentary layers generally extend over large areas and sometimes contain distinctive fossils.