Best evidence yet that “Snowball Earth” saw ice cover the entire globe

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By Evrim Yazgin, COSMOS. 

Excerpt: More than 700 million years ago, the entire globe was covered in ice in a period called “Snowball Earth”. At least, that’s what scientists think. Now geologists believe they’ve found the best evidence that the “Snowball Earth” was really a global event. For reasons which remain unclear, a runaway chain of events caused a massive shift in Earth’s climate about 720 million years ago. Global temperatures plunged and ice sheets kilometres thick are believed to have covered the planet from the poles to the equator. Called the Sturtian glaciation, Snowball Earth lasted about 60 million years. This was quickly followed by another global ice age called the Marinoan glaciation. Together, these big freezes made up the geological period called the Cryogenian (720–635 million years ago). ...A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents new evidence that these massive glaciers covered the entire globe. ...After Snowball Earth thawed are the earliest examples of large organisms during the Ediacaran period (635–541 million years ago). Scientists still don’t understand the processes which led to this explosion in life, after which our planet was changed forever.... 

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