The Missing Link to Prove the Hypothesis of a Snow-Covered Planet 700 Million Years Ago Has Been Revealed.
According to Science Alert, about 700 million years ago, Earth had cooled significantly, leading scientists to hypothesize that it transformed into a completely different snowball planet compared to the familiar blue planet we know today.
This global ice age is believed to have lasted for tens of millions of years, seemingly interrupting the evolutionary timeline of early life on the planet.
However, miraculously, life on Earth not only survived but thrived, triggering a strong explosion of multicellular life after the ice melted.
Earth may have once turned into a snow planet – (Graphic by YALE UNIVERSITY).
Yet, pieces of the ancient “snow planet” puzzle are still missing.
Evidence from this period has mainly been found in sedimentary rocks exposed in areas that were once along coastlines and shallow high-latitude seas, as well as through climate models.
For a long time, scientists have been on the lookout for physical evidence indicating that today’s warm regions were once completely covered in ice during that era.
In a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, geologists claim to have discovered that missing link in a type of unusual conglomerate sandstone found within the granite that forms Pikes Peak in Colorado, USA.
Pikes Peak, the highest mountain in the Rocky Mountain range, was originally named Tavá Kaa-vi by the Ute people due to these strange rocks.
When you cut a rock in half, you will see bizarre patterns created by a sand-rich liquid that appears to have been injected into the rock from ancient times.
A plausible explanation for the formation of these mysterious sandstone blocks is that the immense pressure from the ice layer above—existing when the Earth was in a “snowball” state—caused sediments to mix with meltwater pumped into the weak rock layer beneath.
Advanced dating methods indicate that this sand pumping process occurred between 690 and 660 million years ago.
This timeframe suggests that these sandstone blocks formed during the Cryogenian period, between 720 million and 635 million years ago.
The name comes from “born in cold weather” in ancient Greek, synonymous with the significant climatic upheavals affecting life on the planet, including the transformation of the Earth into a snow-covered planet.
Thus, the final pieces have fallen into place.
The cause of the extreme cold weather at that time is still under debate, but popular theories suggest it is related to prior tectonic changes.
This process may have led to phenomena such as simultaneous and violent volcanic eruptions, releasing particles into the atmosphere and blocking the sunlight needed to warm the planet, creating a catastrophic “volcanic winter.”
