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The
Snowball Earth hypothesis as it currently stands{{cite book| author = Kirschvink, J.L.
| year = 1992
| chapter = Late Proterozoic low-latitude global glaciation: The snowball Earth
| title = The Proterozoic Biosphere: A Multidisciplinary Study
| pages = 51-52
| publisher = Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
| editor = Schopf, JW, and Klein, C.
--> proposes that the [Earth was entirely covered by [ice in part of the [Cryogenian period of the [Proterozoic [eon, and perhaps at other times in the [history of Earth. It was developed to explain [sedimentary rock [glacial deposits at [tropics [latitudes during the [Cryogenian period (850 to 630 million years ago) and other enigmatic features of the Cryogenian geological record. After the last big freeze ended, multicellular [evolution began to accelerate. Snowball Earth remains controversial, and is contested by various scientists who dispute the geophysical feasibility of a completely frozen ocean, or the geological evidence on which the hypothesis is based.
The beginning of a Snowball Earth event could be facilitated by an equatorial continental distribution, which allows rapid, unchecked weathering of continental rocks, absorbing vast quantities of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The depletion of this greenhouse gas causes ice accumulation, which further cools the planet by reflecting solar energy back to space. The runaway system would lead a new ice-covered equilibrium with equatorial temperatures similar to modern-day Antarctica.
To break out of the frozen condition, huge quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, emitted primarily by volcanic activity, would have to accumulate over millions of years. Once melting began, however, it would be quick, perhaps only 1000 years.
Weathering of glacial sediments, by reacting with carbon dioxide, and fertilising oceanic photosynthesisers, may have eventually drawn down enough of the greenhouse gas to instigate another Snowball Earth.
Sedimentary rock usually formed by glaciers, found in what may have been equatorial locations at the time of
deposition, have been taken as evidence implying global ice cover. Many other features of the sedimentary record are easily explained by extensive glacial cover. Geochemical evidence from rocks associated with low-latitude glacial deposits have been interpreted to show a crash in oceanic life during the glacial times, which is consistent with a freezing of the surface oceans.
Whilst the presence of glaciers is not disputed, the idea that the entire planet was covered in ice is more contentious, leading some scientists to prefer a "slushball" to a "snowball". In a slushball scenario a band of ice-free, or ice-thin, waters remains around the
equator, allowing for a continued
hydrologic cycle. This appeals to scientists who believe that certain features of the sedimentary record can only be explained by rapidly moving ice, which would require somewhere ice free to move to, or that observed sedimentary structures could only form below open water. Attempts to construct computer models of a Snowball Earth have also struggled to accommodate global ice cover, without fundamental changes in the laws and constants which govern the planet. Attempts have been made to explain equatorial ice-deposits by claiming Earth's spin axis or magnetic field changed dramatically. Recent research using observed geochemical cyclicity in clastic rocks suggests that the "Snowball" periods were punctuated by warm spells, similar to ice age cycle in recent Earth history.
Snowball Earth has profound implications on the history of life on Earth. While many refugia have been postulated, global ice cover would certainly have ravaged
ecosystems dependent on sunlight. The melting of the ice may have presented many new opportunities for diversification, and may indeed have driven the rapid evolution which took place directly at the end of the Cryogenian period.
What happened
Initiating "Snowball Earth"
A tropical distribution of the continents is, perhaps counter-intuitively, necessary to allow the initiation of a Snowball Earth.Firstly, tropical continents are more reflective than open ocean, and so absorb less of the sun's heat: most absorption of solar energy on Earth today occurs in tropical oceans.
Further, tropical continents are subject to more rainfall, which leads to increased river discharge - and erosion.When exposed to air, silicate rocks undergo weathering reactions which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These reactions proceed in the general form: Rock-forming mineral + CO2 + H2O → cations + bicarbonate + SiO2. An example of such a reaction is the weathering of
wollastonite:
CaSiO3 + 2CO2 + H2O → Ca2+ + SiO2 + 2HCO3-
The released
calcium cations react with the dissolved
bicarbonate in the ocean to form calcium carbonate as a chemically precipitated
sedimentary rock. This transfers
carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air into the geosphere, and, in steady-state on geologic time scales, offsets the carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes into the atmosphere.
A paucity of suitable sediments for analysis makes precise continental distribution during the Neoproterozoic difficult to establish. Some reconstructions point towards polar continents — which have been a feature of all other major glaciations, providing a point upon which ice can nucleate. Changes in ocean circulation patterns may then have provided the trigger of snowball Earth.
Additional factors that may have contributed to the onset of the Neoproterozoic Snowball include the introduction of atmospheric free oxygen, which may have reached sufficient quantities to react with
methane in the atmosphere, oxidising it to carbon dioxide, a much weaker greenhouse gas, and a younger — thus fainter — sun, which would have emitted 6% less radiation in the Neoproterozoic.
Normally, as the Earth gets colder due to natural climatic fluctuations and changes in incoming solar radiation, the cooling slows these weathering reactions. As a result, less carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and the Earth warms as this greenhouse gas accumulates — this 'negative feedback' process limits the magnitude of cooling. During the
Cryogenian period, however, the Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes, which made this moderating process less effective, as high weathering rates continued on land even as the Earth cooled. This let ice advance beyond the polar regions. Once ice advanced to within 30° of the equator, a positive feedback could ensue such that the increased reflectiveness (
albedo) of the ice led to further cooling and the formation of more ice, until the whole Earth is ice covered.
Polar continents, due to low rates of
evaporation, are too dry to allow substantial carbon deposition - restricting the amount of atmospheric carbon doxide that can be removed from the carbon cycle. A gradual rise of the proportion of the
isotope carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 in sediments pre-dating "global" glaciation indicates that CO2 draw-down before snowball Earths was a slow and continuous process.
The start of Snowball Earths are always marked by a sharp downturn in the δ13C value of sediments, a hallmark that may be attributed to a crash in biological productivity as a result of the cold temperatures and ice-covered oceans.
During the frozen period
Global temperature fell so low that the equator was as cold as modern-day
Antarctica. This low temperature was maintained by the reflective ice, its high [albedo resulting in most incoming solar energy being reflected back into space. A lack of heat-retaining clouds, caused by water vapour freezing out of the atmosphere, amplified this effect.
Breaking out of global glaciation
The carbon dioxide levels necessary to unfreeze the Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about 13% of the atmosphere. Since the Earth was almost completely covered with ice, carbon dioxide could not be withdrawn from the atmosphere by the weathering of [siliceous rocks. Over 4-30 million years, enough CO2 and [methane, mainly emitted by [volcanoes, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of ice-free land and water developed; this would be darker than the ice, and thus absorb more energy from the sun - initiating a "[positive feedback".
On the continents, the melting of glaciers would release massive amounts of glacial deposit, which would erode and weather. The resulting sediments supplied to the ocean would be high in nutrients such as
phosphorus, which combined with the abundance of CO2 would trigger a
cyanobacterial population explosion, which would cause a relatively rapid reoxygenation of the atmosphere, which may have contributed to the rise of the Ediacaran biota and the subsequent Cambrian Explosion - a higher oxygen concentration allowing large multicellular lifeforms to develop. This positive feedback loop would melt the ice in geological short order, perhaps less than 1000 years; replenishment of atmospheric oxygen and depletion of the CO2 levels would take further millennium.
It is possible that carbon dioxide levels fell enough for Earth to freeze again; this cycle may have repeated until the continental drift to more polar latitudes.
Evidence
Palaeomagnetism
The Snowball Earth hypothesis was first posited in order to explain what were then considered to be glacial deposits near the equator.Since continents drift with time, ascertaining their position at a given point in history is far from trivial. In addition to considerations of how the continents would have fitted together, the latitude at which a rock was deposited can be constrained by Palæomagnetism.
When sedimentary rocks form, magnetic minerals within them tend to align themselves with the Earth's magnetic field. Through the precise measurement of this paleomagnetism, it is possible to estimate the latitude (but not the
longitude) where the rock matrix was deposited. Paleomagnetic measurements have indicated that some sediments of glacial origin in the Neoproterozoic rock record were deposited within 10 degrees of the equator, although the accuracy of this reconstruction is in question.This palæomagnetic location of apparently glacial sediments (such as dropstones) has been taken to suggest that glaciers extended to sea-level in the tropical latitudes.It is not clear whether this can be taken to imply a global glaciation, or the existence of localised, possibly land-locked, glacial regimes.
Skeptics suggest that the palæomagnetic data could be corrupted if the Earth's magnetic field was substantially different from today's. Depending on the rate of cooling of the Earth's core, it is possible that during the Proterozoic, its
magnetic field did not approximate a
dipole distribution, with a North and South pole roughly aligning with the planet's axis as they do today. Instead, a hotter core may have circulated more vigorously and given rise to 4, 8 or more poles. Paleomagnetic data would then have to be re-interpreted as particles could align pointing to a 'West Pole' rather than the North Pole.
Glacial deposits at low latitudes
Sedimentary rocks that are deposited by glaciers have distinctive features that enable their identification. Long before the advent of the
Snowball Earth hypothesis many Neoproterozoic sediments had been identified as having a glacial origin, including some apparently at tropical latitudes. However, there is only one "very reliable" datum point identifying tropical tillites, which makes statements of equatorial ice cover somewhat presumptuous.It is worth remembering that many sedimentary features traditionally associated with glaciers can also be formed by other means. Evidence includes:
- Dropstones (stones dropped into marine sediments), which can be caused by glaciers or by other causes.
- Varves (annual sediment layers in periglacial lakes), which can form at higher temperatures.
- Glacial striations (formed by embedded rocks scraped against bedrock): similar striations are from time to time formed by mudflows.
- Diamictites (poorly sorted conglomerates). Originally described as glacial till, most were in fact formed by debris flows.
Open-water deposits
It appears that some deposits formed during the Snowball period could only have been formed in the presence of an active hydrological cycle. Bands of glacial deposits up to hundreds of metres thick, separated by small (metres) bands of non-glacial sediments, demonstrate that glaciers were melting and re-forming repeatedly; solid oceans would not permit this scale of deposition. It is considered possible that [ice streams such as seen in Antarctica today could be responsible for these sequences.
Further, sedimentary features that could only form in open water, for example wave-formed ripples, far-travelled ice-rafted debris and indicators of photosynthetic activity, can be found throughout sediments dating from the 'Snowball Earth' periods. Whilst these may represent 'oases' of meltwater on a completely frozen Earth, computer modelling suggests that large areas of the ocean must have remained ice-free arguing that a "hard" snowball is not plausible in terms of energy balance and general circulation models.{{cite book |last= Peltier |first=W.R. |authorlink= |coauthors= |editor=Jenkins, G.S., McMenamin, M.A.S., McKey, C.P., & Sohl, L. ( |others= |title=The Extreme Proterozoic: Geology, Geochemistry, and Climate |origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= |format= |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |series= |date= |year=2004 |month= |publisher=American Geophysical union |location= |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |pages=107-124 |chapter=Climate dynamics in deep time: modeling the “snowball bifurcation” and assessing the plausibility of its occurrence |chapterurl= |quote= -->
Carbon isotope ratios: reduced photosynthesis?
There are two stable isotopes of carbon in sea water: carbon-12 (C-12) and the rare carbon-13 (C-13), which makes up about 1.109% of all carbon isotopes.
Biochemical processes, of which photosynthesis is one, tend to preferentially incorporate the lighter C-12 isotope. Thus ocean-dwelling photosynthesizers, both protists and algae, tend to be very slightly depleted in C-13, relative to the abundance found in the primary volcanic sources of the Earth's carbon. Therefore, an ocean with photosynthetic life will have a higher C-12/C-13 ratio within organic remains, and a lower ratio in corresponding ocean water. The organic component of the lithified sediments will forever remain very slightly, but measurably, depleted in C-13.
During the proposed episode of Snowball Earth, there are variations in the concentration of C-13 that are rapid and extreme compared to observed normal modern variations. This is consistent with a deep freeze that killed off most or nearly all photosynthetic life in the water. Close analysis of the timing of C-13 'spikes' in deposits across the globe allows the recognition of four, possibly five, glacial events in the late Neoproterozoic.
Banded iron formations (BIF)
Banded iron formations are sedimentary rocks of layered iron oxide and iron-poor chert. In the presence of oxygen, iron naturally rusts and becomes insoluble in water. The banded iron formations are commonly very old and their deposition is often related to the oxidation of the Earth's atmosphere during the Paleoproterozoic era, when dissolved iron in the ocean came in contact with photosynthetically-produced oxygen and precipitated out as iron oxide. The bands were produced at the tipping point between an anoxic atmosphere and an oxygenated atmosphere. Since today's atmosphere is oxygen rich (now nearly 21% by volume), it is not possible to accumulate enough iron oxide to deposit a banded formation. The only extensive iron formations that were deposited after the Paleoproterozoic (after 1.8 billion years ago) are associated with Cryogenian glacial deposits.
For such iron-rich rocks to be deposited there would have to be anoxia in the ocean, so much dissolved iron (as ferrous oxide) could accumulate before it met an oxidant that would precipitate it as ferric oxide. For the ocean to become anoxic it must have limited gas exchange with the oxygenated atmosphere. Proponents of the hypothesis argue that the reappearance of BIF in the sedimentary record is a result of limited oxygen levels in an ocean sealed by sea ice, whilst detractors suggest that the rarity of the BIF deposits may indicate that they formed in inland seas. Being isolated from the oceans, such lakes may have been stagnant and anoxic at depth, much like today's Black Sea; a sufficient input of iron could provide the necessary conditions for BIF formation.
Cap carbonate rocks
Period. Around the top of Neoproterozoic glacial deposits there is commonly a sharp transition into a chemically precipatated sedimentary limestone or dolostone metres to tens of metres thick. These cap carbonates sometimes occur in sedimentary successions that have no other carbonate rocks, suggesting that their deposition is result of a profound aberration in ocean chemistry.
These cap carbonates have unusual chemical composition, as well as strange sedimentary structures that are often interpreted as large ripples. The formation of such sedimentary rocks could be caused by a large influx of positively-charged ions, as would be produced by rapid weathering during the extreme greenhouse following a Snowball Earth event. The isotopic signature of the cap carbonates is near -5‰, consistent with the value of the mantle — such a low value is usually could be taken to signify an absence of life, since photosynthesis usually acts to raise the value; alternatively the release of methane deposits could have lowered it from a higher value, and counterbalance the effects of photosynthesis.
The precise mechanism involved in the formation of cap carbonates is not clear, but the most cited explanation suggests that at the melting of a Snowball Earth, water would dissolve the abundant CO2 from the atmosphere to form carbonic acid, which would fall as acid rain. This would weather exposed silicate and carbonate rock (geology) (including readily-attacked glacial debris), releasing large amounts of calcium, which when washed into the ocean would form distinctively textured layers of carbonate sedimentary rock. Such an abiotic "cap carbonate" sediment can be found on top of the glacial till that gave rise to the Snowball Earth hypothesis.
However, there are some problems with the designation of a glacial origin to cap carbonates. Firstly, the high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would cause the oceans to become acidic, and dissolve any carbonates contained within - starkly at odds with the deposition of cap carbonates. Further, the thickness of some cap carbonates is far above what could reasonably be produced in the relatively quick deglaciations. The cause is further weakened by the lack of cap carbonates above many sequences of clear glacial origin at a similar time.
Changing acidity
Isotopes of the element boron suggest that the pH of the oceans dropped dramatically before and after the Marinoan snowball event.δ11B, in
This may indicate a build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, some of which would dissolve into the oceans to form carbonic acid. Although the boron variations may be evidence of extreme climate change, they need not imply a global glaciation.
Space dust
The Earth's surface is very depleted in the element Iridium, which primarily resides in the Earth's core. The only significant source of the element at the surface is cosmogenic that reach Earth. During a Snowball Earth, Iridium would accumulate on the ice sheets, and when the ice melted the resulting layer of sediment would be rich in Iridium. An Iridium anomaly has been discovered at the base of the cap carbonate formations, and has been used to suggest that the glacial episode lasted for at least 3 million years, but this does not necessarily imply a ''global'' extent to the glaciation; indeed a similar anomaly could be explained by the impact of a large [bolide, such a [meteor.
Cyclic climate fluctuations
Using the ratio of mobile cations to those that remain in soils during chemical weathering (the chemical index of alteration), it has been shown that chemical weathering varied in a cyclic fashion within a glacial succession, increasing during interglacial periods and decreasing during cold and arid glacial periods. This pattern, if a true reflection of events, suggests that the "snowball Earths" bore a stronger resemblance to Timeline of glaciation#Pleistocene glacial cycles ice age cycles than to a completely frozen Earth.
Opposing the hypothesis
"Zipper rift" hypothesis
Some pundits suggest that the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth was in fact no different from any other glaciation in Earth's history. Efforts to find a single cause are likely to end in failure according to Eyles and Januszczak who posit a "preeminent" controller. They contend that two pulses of continental "unzipping" — first, the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, forming the proto-Pacific ocean; then the splitting of the continent Baltica from Laurentia, forming the proto-Atlantic — coincided with the glaciated periods.The associated tectonic uplift would form high plateaus, just as the Great Rift Valley is responsible for high topography; this high ground could then host glaciers.Banded iron formations have been taken as unavoidable evidence for global ice cover, since they require dissolved iron ions and anoxic waters to form; however, the limited extent of the Neoproterozoic banded iron deposits means that they may not have formed in frozen oceans, but instead in inland seas. Such seas can experience a wide range of chemistries; high rates of evaporation could concentrate iron ions, and a periodic lack of circulation could allow anoxic bottom water to form. Continental rifting, with associated subsidence, tends to produce such landlocked water bodies. This rifting, and associated subsidence, would produce the space for the fast deposition of sediments, negating the need for an immense and rapid melting to raise the global sea levels.
High-obliquity hypothesis
A competing theory to explain the presence of ice on the equatorial continents was that the Earth's axial tilt was quite high, in the vicinity of 60°, which would place the Earth's land in high "latitudes", although supporting evidence is scarce. LiveScience.com: The Day The Earth Fell Over A less extreme possibility would be that it was merely the Earth's magnetic pole that wandered to this inclination, as the magnetic readings which suggested ice-filled continents depends on the magnetic and rotational poles being relatively similar (there is some evidence to believe that this is the case). In either of these two situations, the freeze would be limited to relatively small areas, as is the case today; severe changes to the Earth's climate are not necessary.
Inertial interchange true polar wander
The evidence for low latitude glacial deposits during the supposed Snowball Earth episodes has been reinterpreted via the concept of inertial interchange true polar wander (IITPW).
This theory, created to explain palæomagnetic data, suggests that the continents continental drift far faster during the late Neoproterozoic, allowing glacial deposits to form at the poles before continents returned to the equator, when palæomagnetic beds were laid down. Whilst the physics behind the proposition is sound, the removal of one flawed data point from the original study rendered the application of the concept in these circumstances unwarranted.
Survival of life through frozen periods
, a type of hydrothermal ventA tremendous glaciation would curtail plant life on Earth, thus letting the atmospheric oxygen be drastically depleted and perhaps even disappear, and thus allow non-oxidized iron-rich rocks to form. Detractors argue that this kind of glaciation would have made life extinct entirely; however, microfossils such as stromatolites and oncolites prove that in shallow marine environments at least, life did not suffer any perturbation, but that trophic complexity survived the cold period unscathed. Proponents counter that it may have been possible for life to survive in these ways:
- Reservoirs of anaerobic organism and low-oxygen life powered by chemicals in deep oceanic hydrothermal vents surviving in Earth's deep oceans and Crust (geology); but photosynthesis would not have been possible there.
- In deep ocean regions far from the supercontinent Rodinia or its remnants as it broke apart and drifted on the tectonic plates, which may have allowed for some small regions of open water preserving small quantities of life with access to light and CO2 for photosynthesizers (not multicellular plants, which did not yet exist) to generate traces of oxygen that were enough to sustain some oxygen-dependent organisms. This would happen even if the sea froze over completely if small parts of the ice were thin enough to admit light.
- In nunatak areas in the tropics, where daytime tropical sun or volcanic heat heated bare rock sheltered from cold wind and made small temporary melt pools, which would freeze over at sunset.
- As eggs and dormant cells and spores deep-frozen into ice right through the worst phases of the frozen period.
- Under the ice layer, in chemolithotrophic (mineral-metabolizing) ecosystems theoretically resembling those in existence in modern glacier beds, high-alpine and Arctic talus permafrost, and basal glacial ice. This is especially plausible in areas of volcanism or Geothermal (geology) activity.
- In pockets of liquid water within and under the ice caps, similar to Lake Vostok in Antarctica. In theory, this system may resemble microbe communities living in the perennially frozen lakes of the Antarctic dry valleys. Photosynthesis can occur under up to 100 m of ice, and at the temperatures predicted by models equatorial sublimation would prevent equatorial ice thickness from exceeding 10 m.
- In small oases of molten water, as would be found near Geothermal (geology) hotspots resembling Iceland today.
However, organisms and ecosystems, as far as it can be determined by the fossil record, do not appear to have undergone the significant change that would be expected by a mass extinction; even if life were to cling on in all the refugia listed above, the post-Snowball biota would have a noticeably different diversity and composition, something that is not observed.In fact, the organisms which ought to be most susceptible to climatic variation emerge unscathed from the Snowball Earth.
Evolution of life
costata, an Ediacaran organism of unknown affinity, with a quilted appearance.The Neoproterozoic was a time of remarkable diversification of multicellular organisms, including animals. Organism size and complexity increased considerably after the end of the Snowball glaciations. This development of multicellular organisms may have been the result of increased evolutionary pressures resulting from multiple icehouse-hothouse cycles; in this sense, Snowball Earth episodes may have "pumped" evolution. Alternatively, fluctuating nutrient levels and rising oxygen may have played a part. Interestingly, another major glacial episode may have ended just a few million years before the Cambrian Explosion.
Origins of the hypothesis
Sir Douglas Mawson, an Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer, spent much of his career studying the Neoproterozoic stratigraphy of South Australia where he identified thick and extensive glacial sediments and late in his career speculated on the possibility of global glaciation. Mawson's ideas of global glaciation, however, were based on the mistaken assumption that the geographic position of Australia, and that of other continents where low-latitude glacial deposits are found, has remained constant through time. With the advancement of the continental drift hypothesis, and eventually plate tectonic theory, came an easier explanation for the glaciogenic sediments — they were deposited at a point in time when the continents were at higher latitudes. In 1964 the idea of global-scale glaciation reemerged when W. Brian Harland published a paper in which he presented paleomagnetic data showing that glacial tillites in Svalbard and Greenland were deposited at tropical latitudes. From this paleomagnetic data, and the sedimentological evidence that the glacial sediments interrupt successions of rocks commonly associated with tropical to temperate latitudes, he argued for an ice age that was so extreme that it resulted in the deposition of marine glacial rocks in the tropics.
In the 1960s, Mikhail Budyko, a Russian climatologist, developed a simple energy-balance climate model to investigate the effect of ice cover on global climate. Using this model, Budyko found that if ice sheets advanced far enough out of the polar regions a feedback ensued where the increased reflectiveness (albedo) of the ice lead to further cooling and the formation of more ice until the entire Earth was covered in ice and stabilized in a new ice-covered equilibrium. . While Budyko's model showed that this ice-albedo stability could happen, he concluded that it had never happened, because his model offered no way to escape from such a scenario.
The term "Snowball Earth" was coined by Joseph Kirschvink, a professor of geobiology at the California Institute of Technology, in a short paper published in 1992 within a lengthy volume concerning the biology of the Proterozoic eon. The major contributions from this work were: (1) the recognition that the presence of banded iron formations is consistent with such a glacial episode and (2) the introduction of a mechanism with which to escape from an ice-covered Earth — the accumulation of CO2 from volcanic outgassing leading to a ultra-greenhouse effect.
Interest in the Snowball Earth increased dramatically after Paul F. Hoffman, the Sturgis Hooper professor of geology at Harvard University, and coauthors applied Kirschvink's ideas to a succession of Neoproterozoic sediments in Namibia, elaborated upon the hypothesis by incorporating such observations as the occurrence of cap carbonates, and published their results in the journal Science.
Currently, aspects of the hypothesis remain controversial and it is being debated under the auspices of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 512: Neoproterozoic Ice Ages.Detailed information on International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 512: Neoproterozoic Ice Ages can be found at http://www.igcp512.com/
Other suspected Snowball Earths
Paleoproterozoic
The Snowball Earth hypothesis has been invoked to explain glacial deposits in the Huronian supergroup of Canada though the paleomagnetic evidence that suggests ice sheets at low latitudes is contested. The glacial sediments of the Makganyene formation of South Africa are slightly younger than the Huronian glacial deposits (~2.25 billion years old) and were deposited at tropical latitudes.Evans, D. A., Beukes, N. J. & Kirschvink, J. L. (1997) Nature 386, 262–266. It has been proposed that rise of free oxygen that occurred during this part of the Paleoproterozoic removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation. As the Sun was notably weaker at the time, the Earth's climate could have been relied on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to maintain surface temperatures above freezing. In the absence of this methane greenhouse, temperatures plunged and a snowball event could have occurred.
Karoo Ice Age (early guess)
Discovery of Carboniferous Age glacial deposits in areas such as India and South America which are now tropical, led to early guesses that the Karoo Ice Age glaciation reached into the tropics, until discovery of continental drift showed that all the affected areas had been grouped together close around the south pole as the supercontinent of Gondwanaland.
Notes and references
Further reading
See also
- Europa (moon) - an example of a large celestial body encased in ice, although much further from the sun than Earth is and colder than Snowball Earth is hypothesized to have been.
References
- Roberts, J.D., 1971.Late Precambrian glaciation: an anti-greenhouse effect? Nature, 234, 216-217.
- Roberts, J.D., 1976. Late Precambrian dolomites, Vendian glaciation, and the synchroneity of Vendian glaciation, J. Geology, 84, 47-63.
- A review paper, available without subscription:
- Torsvik, T.H. and Rehnström, E.F., 2001. Cambrian paleomagnetic data from Baltica: Implications for true polar wander and Cambrian paleogeography, J. Geol. Soc. Lond., 158, 321-329.
External links
- Snowball Earth web site The definitive on-line resource for Snowball Earth. Represents the views of pro-Snowball scientists Hoffman and Schrag - its neutrality is disputable!
- "The Snowball Earth" Overview by Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, August 8, 1999
- One-page Snowball Earth Poster by Paul F. Hoffman (pdf format, 7.22 MB).
- Scientific American article on snowball earth by Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag (subscription required).
- Gabrielle Walker, 'Snowball Earth" in Muse 2004
- New Evidence Puts 'Snowball Earth' Theory Out In The Cold March 25, 2007 - sciencedaily.com
- Extensive list of useful references
The Snowball Earth hypothesis as it currently stands{{cite book| author = Kirschvink, J.L.
| year = 1992
| chapter = Late Proterozoic low-latitude global glaciation: The snowball Earth
| title = The Proterozoic Biosphere: A Multidisciplinary Study
| pages = 51-52
| publisher = Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
| editor = Schopf, JW, and Klein, C.
--> proposes that the [Earth was entirely covered by [ice in part of the [Cryogenian period of the [Proterozoic [eon, and perhaps at other times in the [history of Earth. It was developed to explain [sedimentary rock [glacial deposits at [tropics [latitudes during the [Cryogenian period (850 to 630 million years ago) and other enigmatic features of the Cryogenian geological record. After the last big freeze ended, multicellular [evolution began to accelerate. Snowball Earth remains controversial, and is contested by various scientists who dispute the geophysical feasibility of a completely frozen ocean, or the geological evidence on which the hypothesis is based.
The beginning of a Snowball Earth event could be facilitated by an equatorial continental distribution, which allows rapid, unchecked weathering of continental rocks, absorbing vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The depletion of this greenhouse gas causes ice accumulation, which further cools the planet by reflecting solar energy back to space. The runaway system would lead a new ice-covered equilibrium with equatorial temperatures similar to modern-day Antarctica.
To break out of the frozen condition, huge quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, emitted primarily by volcanic activity, would have to accumulate over millions of years. Once melting began, however, it would be quick, perhaps only 1000 years.
Weathering of glacial sediments, by reacting with carbon dioxide, and fertilising oceanic photosynthesisers, may have eventually drawn down enough of the greenhouse gas to instigate another Snowball Earth.
Sedimentary rock usually formed by glaciers, found in what may have been equatorial locations at the time of deposition, have been taken as evidence implying global ice cover. Many other features of the sedimentary record are easily explained by extensive glacial cover. Geochemical evidence from rocks associated with low-latitude glacial deposits have been interpreted to show a crash in oceanic life during the glacial times, which is consistent with a freezing of the surface oceans.
Whilst the presence of glaciers is not disputed, the idea that the entire planet was covered in ice is more contentious, leading some scientists to prefer a "slushball" to a "snowball". In a slushball scenario a band of ice-free, or ice-thin, waters remains around the equator, allowing for a continued hydrologic cycle. This appeals to scientists who believe that certain features of the sedimentary record can only be explained by rapidly moving ice, which would require somewhere ice free to move to, or that observed sedimentary structures could only form below open water. Attempts to construct computer models of a Snowball Earth have also struggled to accommodate global ice cover, without fundamental changes in the laws and constants which govern the planet. Attempts have been made to explain equatorial ice-deposits by claiming Earth's spin axis or magnetic field changed dramatically. Recent research using observed geochemical cyclicity in clastic rocks suggests that the "Snowball" periods were punctuated by warm spells, similar to ice age cycle in recent Earth history.
Snowball Earth has profound implications on the history of life on Earth. While many refugia have been postulated, global ice cover would certainly have ravaged ecosystems dependent on sunlight. The melting of the ice may have presented many new opportunities for diversification, and may indeed have driven the rapid evolution which took place directly at the end of the Cryogenian period.
What happened
Initiating "Snowball Earth"
A tropical distribution of the continents is, perhaps counter-intuitively, necessary to allow the initiation of a Snowball Earth.Firstly, tropical continents are more reflective than open ocean, and so absorb less of the sun's heat: most absorption of solar energy on Earth today occurs in tropical oceans.
Further, tropical continents are subject to more rainfall, which leads to increased river discharge - and erosion.When exposed to air, silicate rocks undergo weathering reactions which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These reactions proceed in the general form: Rock-forming mineral + CO2 + H2O → cations + bicarbonate + SiO2. An example of such a reaction is the weathering of wollastonite:
CaSiO3 + 2CO2 + H2O → Ca2+ + SiO2 + 2HCO3-
The released calcium cations react with the dissolved bicarbonate in the ocean to form calcium carbonate as a chemically precipitated sedimentary rock. This transfers carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air into the geosphere, and, in steady-state on geologic time scales, offsets the carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes into the atmosphere.
A paucity of suitable sediments for analysis makes precise continental distribution during the Neoproterozoic difficult to establish. Some reconstructions point towards polar continents — which have been a feature of all other major glaciations, providing a point upon which ice can nucleate. Changes in ocean circulation patterns may then have provided the trigger of snowball Earth.
Additional factors that may have contributed to the onset of the Neoproterozoic Snowball include the introduction of atmospheric free oxygen, which may have reached sufficient quantities to react with methane in the atmosphere, oxidising it to carbon dioxide, a much weaker greenhouse gas, and a younger — thus fainter — sun, which would have emitted 6% less radiation in the Neoproterozoic.
Normally, as the Earth gets colder due to natural climatic fluctuations and changes in incoming solar radiation, the cooling slows these weathering reactions. As a result, less carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and the Earth warms as this greenhouse gas accumulates — this 'negative feedback' process limits the magnitude of cooling. During the Cryogenian period, however, the Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes, which made this moderating process less effective, as high weathering rates continued on land even as the Earth cooled. This let ice advance beyond the polar regions. Once ice advanced to within 30° of the equator, a positive feedback could ensue such that the increased reflectiveness (albedo) of the ice led to further cooling and the formation of more ice, until the whole Earth is ice covered.
Polar continents, due to low rates of evaporation, are too dry to allow substantial carbon deposition - restricting the amount of atmospheric carbon doxide that can be removed from the carbon cycle. A gradual rise of the proportion of the isotope carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 in sediments pre-dating "global" glaciation indicates that CO2 draw-down before snowball Earths was a slow and continuous process.
The start of Snowball Earths are always marked by a sharp downturn in the δ13C value of sediments, a hallmark that may be attributed to a crash in biological productivity as a result of the cold temperatures and ice-covered oceans.
During the frozen period
Global temperature fell so low that the equator was as cold as modern-day Antarctica. This low temperature was maintained by the reflective ice, its high [albedo resulting in most incoming solar energy being reflected back into space. A lack of heat-retaining clouds, caused by water vapour freezing out of the atmosphere, amplified this effect.
Breaking out of global glaciation
The carbon dioxide levels necessary to unfreeze the Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about 13% of the atmosphere. Since the Earth was almost completely covered with ice, carbon dioxide could not be withdrawn from the atmosphere by the weathering of [siliceous rocks. Over 4-30 million years, enough CO2 and [methane, mainly emitted by [volcanoes, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of ice-free land and water developed; this would be darker than the ice, and thus absorb more energy from the sun - initiating a "[positive feedback".
On the continents, the melting of glaciers would release massive amounts of glacial deposit, which would erode and weather. The resulting sediments supplied to the ocean would be high in nutrients such as phosphorus, which combined with the abundance of CO2 would trigger a cyanobacterial population explosion, which would cause a relatively rapid reoxygenation of the atmosphere, which may have contributed to the rise of the Ediacaran biota and the subsequent Cambrian Explosion - a higher oxygen concentration allowing large multicellular lifeforms to develop. This positive feedback loop would melt the ice in geological short order, perhaps less than 1000 years; replenishment of atmospheric oxygen and depletion of the CO2 levels would take further millennium.
It is possible that carbon dioxide levels fell enough for Earth to freeze again; this cycle may have repeated until the continental drift to more polar latitudes.
Evidence
Palaeomagnetism
The Snowball Earth hypothesis was first posited in order to explain what were then considered to be glacial deposits near the equator.Since continents drift with time, ascertaining their position at a given point in history is far from trivial. In addition to considerations of how the continents would have fitted together, the latitude at which a rock was deposited can be constrained by Palæomagnetism.
When sedimentary rocks form, magnetic minerals within them tend to align themselves with the Earth's magnetic field. Through the precise measurement of this paleomagnetism, it is possible to estimate the latitude (but not the longitude) where the rock matrix was deposited. Paleomagnetic measurements have indicated that some sediments of glacial origin in the Neoproterozoic rock record were deposited within 10 degrees of the equator, although the accuracy of this reconstruction is in question.This palæomagnetic location of apparently glacial sediments (such as dropstones) has been taken to suggest that glaciers extended to sea-level in the tropical latitudes.It is not clear whether this can be taken to imply a global glaciation, or the existence of localised, possibly land-locked, glacial regimes.
Skeptics suggest that the palæomagnetic data could be corrupted if the Earth's magnetic field was substantially different from today's. Depending on the rate of cooling of the Earth's core, it is possible that during the Proterozoic, its magnetic field did not approximate a dipole distribution, with a North and South pole roughly aligning with the planet's axis as they do today. Instead, a hotter core may have circulated more vigorously and given rise to 4, 8 or more poles. Paleomagnetic data would then have to be re-interpreted as particles could align pointing to a 'West Pole' rather than the North Pole.
Glacial deposits at low latitudes
Sedimentary rocks that are deposited by glaciers have distinctive features that enable their identification. Long before the advent of the Snowball Earth hypothesis many Neoproterozoic sediments had been identified as having a glacial origin, including some apparently at tropical latitudes. However, there is only one "very reliable" datum point identifying tropical tillites, which makes statements of equatorial ice cover somewhat presumptuous.It is worth remembering that many sedimentary features traditionally associated with glaciers can also be formed by other means. Evidence includes:
- Dropstones (stones dropped into marine sediments), which can be caused by glaciers or by other causes.
- Varves (annual sediment layers in periglacial lakes), which can form at higher temperatures.
- Glacial striations (formed by embedded rocks scraped against bedrock): similar striations are from time to time formed by mudflows.
- Diamictites (poorly sorted conglomerates). Originally described as glacial till, most were in fact formed by debris flows.
Open-water deposits
It appears that some deposits formed during the Snowball period could only have been formed in the presence of an active hydrological cycle. Bands of glacial deposits up to hundreds of metres thick, separated by small (metres) bands of non-glacial sediments, demonstrate that glaciers were melting and re-forming repeatedly; solid oceans would not permit this scale of deposition. It is considered possible that [ice streams such as seen in Antarctica today could be responsible for these sequences.
Further, sedimentary features that could only form in open water, for example wave-formed ripples, far-travelled ice-rafted debris and indicators of photosynthetic activity, can be found throughout sediments dating from the 'Snowball Earth' periods. Whilst these may represent 'oases' of meltwater on a completely frozen Earth, computer modelling suggests that large areas of the ocean must have remained ice-free arguing that a "hard" snowball is not plausible in terms of energy balance and general circulation models.{{cite book |last= Peltier |first=W.R. |authorlink= |coauthors= |editor=Jenkins, G.S., McMenamin, M.A.S., McKey, C.P., & Sohl, L. ( |others= |title=The Extreme Proterozoic: Geology, Geochemistry, and Climate |origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= |format= |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |series= |date= |year=2004 |month= |publisher=American Geophysical union |location= |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |pages=107-124 |chapter=Climate dynamics in deep time: modeling the “snowball bifurcation” and assessing the plausibility of its occurrence |chapterurl= |quote= -->
Carbon isotope ratios: reduced photosynthesis?
There are two stable isotopes of carbon in sea water: carbon-12 (C-12) and the rare carbon-13 (C-13), which makes up about 1.109% of all carbon isotopes.
Biochemical processes, of which photosynthesis is one, tend to preferentially incorporate the lighter C-12 isotope. Thus ocean-dwelling photosynthesizers, both protists and algae, tend to be very slightly depleted in C-13, relative to the abundance found in the primary volcanic sources of the Earth's carbon. Therefore, an ocean with photosynthetic life will have a higher C-12/C-13 ratio within organic remains, and a lower ratio in corresponding ocean water. The organic component of the lithified sediments will forever remain very slightly, but measurably, depleted in C-13.
During the proposed episode of Snowball Earth, there are variations in the concentration of C-13 that are rapid and extreme compared to observed normal modern variations. This is consistent with a deep freeze that killed off most or nearly all photosynthetic life in the water. Close analysis of the timing of C-13 'spikes' in deposits across the globe allows the recognition of four, possibly five, glacial events in the late Neoproterozoic.
Banded iron formations (BIF)
Banded iron formations are sedimentary rocks of layered iron oxide and iron-poor chert. In the presence of oxygen, iron naturally rusts and becomes insoluble in water. The banded iron formations are commonly very old and their deposition is often related to the oxidation of the Earth's atmosphere during the Paleoproterozoic era, when dissolved iron in the ocean came in contact with photosynthetically-produced oxygen and precipitated out as iron oxide. The bands were produced at the tipping point between an anoxic atmosphere and an oxygenated atmosphere. Since today's atmosphere is oxygen rich (now nearly 21% by volume), it is not possible to accumulate enough iron oxide to deposit a banded formation. The only extensive iron formations that were deposited after the Paleoproterozoic (after 1.8 billion years ago) are associated with Cryogenian glacial deposits.
For such iron-rich rocks to be deposited there would have to be anoxia in the ocean, so much dissolved iron (as ferrous oxide) could accumulate before it met an oxidant that would precipitate it as ferric oxide. For the ocean to become anoxic it must have limited gas exchange with the oxygenated atmosphere. Proponents of the hypothesis argue that the reappearance of BIF in the sedimentary record is a result of limited oxygen levels in an ocean sealed by sea ice, whilst detractors suggest that the rarity of the BIF deposits may indicate that they formed in inland seas. Being isolated from the oceans, such lakes may have been stagnant and anoxic at depth, much like today's Black Sea; a sufficient input of iron could provide the necessary conditions for BIF formation.
Cap carbonate rocks
Period. Around the top of Neoproterozoic glacial deposits there is commonly a sharp transition into a chemically precipatated sedimentary limestone or dolostone metres to tens of metres thick. These cap carbonates sometimes occur in sedimentary successions that have no other carbonate rocks, suggesting that their deposition is result of a profound aberration in ocean chemistry.
These cap carbonates have unusual chemical composition, as well as strange sedimentary structures that are often interpreted as large ripples. The formation of such sedimentary rocks could be caused by a large influx of positively-charged ions, as would be produced by rapid weathering during the extreme greenhouse following a Snowball Earth event. The isotopic signature of the cap carbonates is near -5‰, consistent with the value of the mantle — such a low value is usually could be taken to signify an absence of life, since photosynthesis usually acts to raise the value; alternatively the release of methane deposits could have lowered it from a higher value, and counterbalance the effects of photosynthesis.
The precise mechanism involved in the formation of cap carbonates is not clear, but the most cited explanation suggests that at the melting of a Snowball Earth, water would dissolve the abundant CO2 from the atmosphere to form carbonic acid, which would fall as acid rain. This would weather exposed silicate and carbonate rock (geology) (including readily-attacked glacial debris), releasing large amounts of calcium, which when washed into the ocean would form distinctively textured layers of carbonate sedimentary rock. Such an abiotic "cap carbonate" sediment can be found on top of the glacial till that gave rise to the Snowball Earth hypothesis.
However, there are some problems with the designation of a glacial origin to cap carbonates. Firstly, the high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would cause the oceans to become acidic, and dissolve any carbonates contained within - starkly at odds with the deposition of cap carbonates. Further, the thickness of some cap carbonates is far above what could reasonably be produced in the relatively quick deglaciations. The cause is further weakened by the lack of cap carbonates above many sequences of clear glacial origin at a similar time.
Changing acidity
Isotopes of the element boron suggest that the pH of the oceans dropped dramatically before and after the Marinoan snowball event.δ11B, in
This may indicate a build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, some of which would dissolve into the oceans to form carbonic acid. Although the boron variations may be evidence of extreme climate change, they need not imply a global glaciation.
Space dust
The Earth's surface is very depleted in the element Iridium, which primarily resides in the Earth's core. The only significant source of the element at the surface is cosmogenic that reach Earth. During a Snowball Earth, Iridium would accumulate on the ice sheets, and when the ice melted the resulting layer of sediment would be rich in Iridium. An Iridium anomaly has been discovered at the base of the cap carbonate formations, and has been used to suggest that the glacial episode lasted for at least 3 million years, but this does not necessarily imply a ''global'' extent to the glaciation; indeed a similar anomaly could be explained by the impact of a large [bolide, such a [meteor.
Cyclic climate fluctuations
Using the ratio of mobile cations to those that remain in soils during chemical weathering (the chemical index of alteration), it has been shown that chemical weathering varied in a cyclic fashion within a glacial succession, increasing during interglacial periods and decreasing during cold and arid glacial periods. This pattern, if a true reflection of events, suggests that the "snowball Earths" bore a stronger resemblance to Timeline of glaciation#Pleistocene glacial cycles ice age cycles than to a completely frozen Earth.
Opposing the hypothesis
"Zipper rift" hypothesis
Some pundits suggest that the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth was in fact no different from any other glaciation in Earth's history. Efforts to find a single cause are likely to end in failure according to Eyles and Januszczak who posit a "preeminent" controller. They contend that two pulses of continental "unzipping" — first, the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, forming the proto-Pacific ocean; then the splitting of the continent Baltica from Laurentia, forming the proto-Atlantic — coincided with the glaciated periods.The associated tectonic uplift would form high plateaus, just as the Great Rift Valley is responsible for high topography; this high ground could then host glaciers.Banded iron formations have been taken as unavoidable evidence for global ice cover, since they require dissolved iron ions and anoxic waters to form; however, the limited extent of the Neoproterozoic banded iron deposits means that they may not have formed in frozen oceans, but instead in inland seas. Such seas can experience a wide range of chemistries; high rates of evaporation could concentrate iron ions, and a periodic lack of circulation could allow anoxic bottom water to form. Continental rifting, with associated subsidence, tends to produce such landlocked water bodies. This rifting, and associated subsidence, would produce the space for the fast deposition of sediments, negating the need for an immense and rapid melting to raise the global sea levels.
High-obliquity hypothesis
A competing theory to explain the presence of ice on the equatorial continents was that the Earth's axial tilt was quite high, in the vicinity of 60°, which would place the Earth's land in high "latitudes", although supporting evidence is scarce. LiveScience.com: The Day The Earth Fell Over A less extreme possibility would be that it was merely the Earth's magnetic pole that wandered to this inclination, as the magnetic readings which suggested ice-filled continents depends on the magnetic and rotational poles being relatively similar (there is some evidence to believe that this is the case). In either of these two situations, the freeze would be limited to relatively small areas, as is the case today; severe changes to the Earth's climate are not necessary.
Inertial interchange true polar wander
The evidence for low latitude glacial deposits during the supposed Snowball Earth episodes has been reinterpreted via the concept of inertial interchange true polar wander (IITPW).
This theory, created to explain palæomagnetic data, suggests that the continents continental drift far faster during the late Neoproterozoic, allowing glacial deposits to form at the poles before continents returned to the equator, when palæomagnetic beds were laid down. Whilst the physics behind the proposition is sound, the removal of one flawed data point from the original study rendered the application of the concept in these circumstances unwarranted.
Survival of life through frozen periods
, a type of hydrothermal ventA tremendous glaciation would curtail plant life on Earth, thus letting the atmospheric oxygen be drastically depleted and perhaps even disappear, and thus allow non-oxidized iron-rich rocks to form. Detractors argue that this kind of glaciation would have made life extinct entirely; however, microfossils such as stromatolites and oncolites prove that in shallow marine environments at least, life did not suffer any perturbation, but that trophic complexity survived the cold period unscathed. Proponents counter that it may have been possible for life to survive in these ways:
- Reservoirs of anaerobic organism and low-oxygen life powered by chemicals in deep oceanic hydrothermal vents surviving in Earth's deep oceans and Crust (geology); but photosynthesis would not have been possible there.
- In deep ocean regions far from the supercontinent Rodinia or its remnants as it broke apart and drifted on the tectonic plates, which may have allowed for some small regions of open water preserving small quantities of life with access to light and CO2 for photosynthesizers (not multicellular plants, which did not yet exist) to generate traces of oxygen that were enough to sustain some oxygen-dependent organisms. This would happen even if the sea froze over completely if small parts of the ice were thin enough to admit light.
- In nunatak areas in the tropics, where daytime tropical sun or volcanic heat heated bare rock sheltered from cold wind and made small temporary melt pools, which would freeze over at sunset.
- As eggs and dormant cells and spores deep-frozen into ice right through the worst phases of the frozen period.
- Under the ice layer, in chemolithotrophic (mineral-metabolizing) ecosystems theoretically resembling those in existence in modern glacier beds, high-alpine and Arctic talus permafrost, and basal glacial ice. This is especially plausible in areas of volcanism or Geothermal (geology) activity.
- In pockets of liquid water within and under the ice caps, similar to Lake Vostok in Antarctica. In theory, this system may resemble microbe communities living in the perennially frozen lakes of the Antarctic dry valleys. Photosynthesis can occur under up to 100 m of ice, and at the temperatures predicted by models equatorial sublimation would prevent equatorial ice thickness from exceeding 10 m.
- In small oases of molten water, as would be found near Geothermal (geology) hotspots resembling Iceland today.
However, organisms and ecosystems, as far as it can be determined by the fossil record, do not appear to have undergone the significant change that would be expected by a mass extinction; even if life were to cling on in all the refugia listed above, the post-Snowball biota would have a noticeably different diversity and composition, something that is not observed.In fact, the organisms which ought to be most susceptible to climatic variation emerge unscathed from the Snowball Earth.
Evolution of life
costata, an Ediacaran organism of unknown affinity, with a quilted appearance.The Neoproterozoic was a time of remarkable diversification of multicellular organisms, including animals. Organism size and complexity increased considerably after the end of the Snowball glaciations. This development of multicellular organisms may have been the result of increased evolutionary pressures resulting from multiple icehouse-hothouse cycles; in this sense, Snowball Earth episodes may have "pumped" evolution. Alternatively, fluctuating nutrient levels and rising oxygen may have played a part. Interestingly, another major glacial episode may have ended just a few million years before the Cambrian Explosion.
Origins of the hypothesis
Sir Douglas Mawson, an Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer, spent much of his career studying the Neoproterozoic stratigraphy of South Australia where he identified thick and extensive glacial sediments and late in his career speculated on the possibility of global glaciation. Mawson's ideas of global glaciation, however, were based on the mistaken assumption that the geographic position of Australia, and that of other continents where low-latitude glacial deposits are found, has remained constant through time. With the advancement of the continental drift hypothesis, and eventually plate tectonic theory, came an easier explanation for the glaciogenic sediments — they were deposited at a point in time when the continents were at higher latitudes. In 1964 the idea of global-scale glaciation reemerged when W. Brian Harland published a paper in which he presented paleomagnetic data showing that glacial tillites in Svalbard and Greenland were deposited at tropical latitudes. From this paleomagnetic data, and the sedimentological evidence that the glacial sediments interrupt successions of rocks commonly associated with tropical to temperate latitudes, he argued for an ice age that was so extreme that it resulted in the deposition of marine glacial rocks in the tropics.
In the 1960s, Mikhail Budyko, a Russian climatologist, developed a simple energy-balance climate model to investigate the effect of ice cover on global climate. Using this model, Budyko found that if ice sheets advanced far enough out of the polar regions a feedback ensued where the increased reflectiveness (albedo) of the ice lead to further cooling and the formation of more ice until the entire Earth was covered in ice and stabilized in a new ice-covered equilibrium. . While Budyko's model showed that this ice-albedo stability could happen, he concluded that it had never happened, because his model offered no way to escape from such a scenario.
The term "Snowball Earth" was coined by Joseph Kirschvink, a professor of geobiology at the California Institute of Technology, in a short paper published in 1992 within a lengthy volume concerning the biology of the Proterozoic eon. The major contributions from this work were: (1) the recognition that the presence of banded iron formations is consistent with such a glacial episode and (2) the introduction of a mechanism with which to escape from an ice-covered Earth — the accumulation of CO2 from volcanic outgassing leading to a ultra-greenhouse effect.
Interest in the Snowball Earth increased dramatically after Paul F. Hoffman, the Sturgis Hooper professor of geology at Harvard University, and coauthors applied Kirschvink's ideas to a succession of Neoproterozoic sediments in Namibia, elaborated upon the hypothesis by incorporating such observations as the occurrence of cap carbonates, and published their results in the journal Science.
Currently, aspects of the hypothesis remain controversial and it is being debated under the auspices of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 512: Neoproterozoic Ice Ages.Detailed information on International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 512: Neoproterozoic Ice Ages can be found at http://www.igcp512.com/
Other suspected Snowball Earths
Paleoproterozoic
The Snowball Earth hypothesis has been invoked to explain glacial deposits in the Huronian supergroup of Canada though the paleomagnetic evidence that suggests ice sheets at low latitudes is contested. The glacial sediments of the Makganyene formation of South Africa are slightly younger than the Huronian glacial deposits (~2.25 billion years old) and were deposited at tropical latitudes.Evans, D. A., Beukes, N. J. & Kirschvink, J. L. (1997) Nature 386, 262–266. It has been proposed that rise of free oxygen that occurred during this part of the Paleoproterozoic removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation. As the Sun was notably weaker at the time, the Earth's climate could have been relied on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to maintain surface temperatures above freezing. In the absence of this methane greenhouse, temperatures plunged and a snowball event could have occurred.
Karoo Ice Age (early guess)
Discovery of Carboniferous Age glacial deposits in areas such as India and South America which are now tropical, led to early guesses that the Karoo Ice Age glaciation reached into the tropics, until discovery of continental drift showed that all the affected areas had been grouped together close around the south pole as the supercontinent of Gondwanaland.
Notes and references
Further reading
See also
- Europa (moon) - an example of a large celestial body encased in ice, although much further from the sun than Earth is and colder than Snowball Earth is hypothesized to have been.
References
- Roberts, J.D., 1971.Late Precambrian glaciation: an anti-greenhouse effect? Nature, 234, 216-217.
- Roberts, J.D., 1976. Late Precambrian dolomites, Vendian glaciation, and the synchroneity of Vendian glaciation, J. Geology, 84, 47-63.
- A review paper, available without subscription:
- Torsvik, T.H. and Rehnström, E.F., 2001. Cambrian paleomagnetic data from Baltica: Implications for true polar wander and Cambrian paleogeography, J. Geol. Soc. Lond., 158, 321-329.
External links
- Snowball Earth web site The definitive on-line resource for Snowball Earth. Represents the views of pro-Snowball scientists Hoffman and Schrag - its neutrality is disputable!
- "The Snowball Earth" Overview by Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, August 8, 1999
- One-page Snowball Earth Poster by Paul F. Hoffman (pdf format, 7.22 MB).
- Scientific American article on snowball earth by Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag (subscription required).
- Gabrielle Walker, 'Snowball Earth" in Muse 2004
- New Evidence Puts 'Snowball Earth' Theory Out In The Cold March 25, 2007 - sciencedaily.com
- Extensive list of useful references
SNOWBALL EARTH
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BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon - Snowball Earth
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BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon - Snowball Earth
Programme transcript. The controversial theory that for millions of years the Earth was plunged into catastrophe - entirely smothered in ice up to one kilometre thick.
The Snowball Earth
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Amazon.co.uk: Snowball Earth: The Story of the Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know It: Gabrielle Walker: Books
MELTING THE SNOWBALL EARTH THEORY 06 Mar 2002
MELTING THE SNOWBALL EARTH THEORY - 06 Mar 2002 : Geoscientists in Scotland have found evidence against the controversial theory that the Earth was completely frozen for periods ...
Amazon.co.uk: Snowball Earth: Gabrielle Walker: Books
Amazon.co.uk: Snowball Earth: Gabrielle Walker: Books ... RRP: £8.99 : Price: £6.74 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and ...
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We may owe our green Earth, and its photosynthesising plant life, to a big freeze that covered the world in thick sheets of ice 2. 3 billion years ago
