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Research Supports "Snowball Earth" Hypothesis
u2boy_nl writes, "A new U.S. study finds evidence for 'Snowball Earth,' the hypothesis that the entire Earth was ice-covered for long periods on several occasions, most recently 600-700 million years ago. The icy conditions (Earth's oceans frozen completely with ice more than a kilometer thick) ended violently under extreme greenhouse conditions — snowballearth.org suggests the meltdown could have occurred in as little as 2,000 years. Snowball Earth challenges long-held assumptions regarding the limits of global change. Wikipedia has more on the hypothesis."
Sorry.. couldn't resist it.
Seriously, I wonder if there could be evidence of organisms tolerant of saltier conditions if all that ice left the remaining water saltier.
I always did want to live on Hoth. The big question, however, is whether or not we'll have tontons when the next snowball era rolls around.
The Bush administration will probably love this! This will just confirm their assertions that the Earth's climate can swign wildly on its own, therefore we have no influence on it, yeah right.
In all seriousness though, how can the Earth being an axial dipole (2 magnetic poles along a single axis) hundreds of millions of years ago suggest an Earth that was covered by up to a kilometer of ice? The Earth is currently in the same magnetic configuration, and there's certainly no indication of an impending super ice age.
Using the same logic, would Geologists in 600 Million years look back on today and say the Earth was covered by ice now?
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
snowballearth.org is registered to "ROBERT HILDEBRAND PHOT", a landscape photographer based in Utah. Draw your own conclusions.
Sylvan can be talked into anything.
-Peter
PS: Maybe this deserves to be modded down, but do me a favor and don't moderate simply because you don't get it.
Just bring a package of wonton skins along with you on your next perimeter patrol - if things go too badly, gut your tauntaun with your light saber, carve it up a bit, wrap some in a wonton skin, and then use the light saber to boil some water.
Scrumptious!
Those cavemen must have burned a hell of a lot of oil to cause sufficient greenhouse gas to get the earth to warm up again.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They found evidence of dinos with their tongue stuck to some metal ore.
(If you don't know what the Fermi Paradox is, look, Wikipedia!)
One of the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox (which I note doesn't show up in the Wikipedia article) is that life is common in the universe, but the worlds are either hospitable towards the life, resulting in no selection pressure towards complexity, or so hostile that the life totally dies out too often to advance. The general image is of a universe full of oceans full of simple, utterly stable bacteria, which by most standards is still basically lifeless. (We're really interested in other intelligent life, not a universe of little germs.) It has been hypothesized that the best scenario for complex life is a recurring series of disasters that almost, but not quite, kills off life each time, resulting in a strong selection pressure for the requisite complexity to handle such environmental pressures.
Connect that idea with:
The next section of the Wikipedia article mentions the effect this could have had on evolution.
(I find the Fermi Paradox interesting because I believe it is actually by far the biggest problem facing science as a whole; science says life should be plentiful and easy and populating the stars ought to be possible at significant fractions of the speed of light, so where is the life that is doing so? It's easy to become numbed to the problem because it seems somewhat abstract, but it's not. Something is fundamentally wrong with at least one of biology, astronomy, cosmology, sociology, and/or the intersections of those disciplines we don't have names for, and we don't know what.)
This is a fancy way of saying that they have found deposits of submarine rock near the equator that should only be forming in an arctic climate, and which date to the period of 'snowball earth' in question. This sediment has magnetic signatures which signify it formed originally at the equator, in an equatorial magnetic field, and did not simply arrive at the equator after having been formed previously in the arctic.
Please note that we are speaking here of a process of lava cooling, and 'trapping' a fingerprint of whatever magnetic field was present at the time it cooled. That's how these fingerprints are formed and it is a well-known and documented process, and a basis for the current models of magnetic field shift.
Had the magnetic system been different in the past (not a two-pole magnetic field) it would have rendered these results useless, but this article itself explains that there is now evidence that the Earth's magnetic field has always been a dipole (two-pole) field and that these results are correct.
At least, that is my understanding.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
I find it amazing that people who believe in something with basically no verifiable proof of existence (i.e. God) have such a tough time believing in something that is so demonstrably happening in front of them.
If ever there was proof of the power of man to delude himself, denying that we have a large and thus-far detrimental effect on climate change would be it.
Bush made the ice melt just like he killed polar bears!!
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I can't wait till they get a hold of this one. Regardless of all the other evidence they will use it as a way to slag on evironmentalists, the Kyoto treaty, liberals, democrats, gay marriage, stem cell research and find creative ways to link all of them to terrorism. And champion corrupt corporations as being the benign benefactors of all humanity. This should be fun.
The climate is dynamic. The question is: "are humans having a serious negative impact on the global climate?" And there is a bunch of evidence stacking up saying "yes."
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Maybe all complex life eventually develops their version of Myspace?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Scientists have been giving the doomsday sales pitch for a long time in order to scare up funds. Scientists used to insist in the 1970s that we are "on the cusp of a new ice age", that we will run out of food by 2000 AD and billions of people will starve to death, that nuclear holocaust is a certainty, that black clouds of killer bees will take over America, that leaded gasoline and paitn will give birth to billions of babies with birth defects, that asteroids from space will destroy us, that the flu pandemic is supposed to kill 300 million people, SARS will do the same, that the Y2K bug will cause nuclear meltdowns all over the planet, ... did I miss anything? Every time, questioning these claims caused one to earn the label of "reactionary", "fascist", and "ignorant". Today, the public is equally fanatical in its belief of the Greenhouse effect, and one can literally get his teeth knocked out in public for saying that they don't believe it. The rabble continue to buy into doomsday prophecies, as they have done since thousands of years ago.
The climate is dynamic. The question is: "is human survival subject to something so trival as the randomness of the universe?" And the answer is "yes". There is no god. Just ask the dinosaurs. Shit happens.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Current scientific theories, at least those popular in America, say that our genes are programmed for obesity because we experienced frequent famines as cavement. Corollary to that, are we genetically programmed to believe in impending doom? Doomsday predictions have been present throughout the world's civilizations, throughout history.
No more including Wikipedia links in articles. I mean seriously, does anyone out there really need help searching the wikipedia? Please, if you want to give real information on a subject, give a real primary or secondary source. If that means you have to learn how to do some real research, well thats a skill you need to learn at some point anyways.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
> The icy conditions ... ended violently under extreme greenhouse conditions
:)
And it's a little known fact that this was bought about by Americans driving SUVs
... that we live on.
Suppose that a mechanism of repeating cycles (and perhaps cycles within cycles) between ice ages (major and minor) has been a requisite factor in the evolution of life on Earth, with the regular cycles of extinction following the alternation of ice ages and greenhouse eras.
It would make for a grand Darwinian scythe.
What does that do to the various elements of the Drake equation?
While the universe is certainly large enough for intelligent life to evolve under a wide variety of conditions, I'm not at all sure that our galaxy has enough systems with clockwork geoclimate cycles similar to our own to permit an evolutionary process at all similar to ours to have taken place.
As poor an example of an intelligent species as we are, we may be the best that this galaxy can muster.
I have a problem with a theory like this. If all that ice (a kilometer of it?) could have melted as recently as 2,000 years ago, how did all of our planet's endlessly diverse planet life grow and propagate globally in such a short time period? There are Sequoias in California that are at least that old, and other living trees elsewhere in the world that are older. Seems to me that throws a wrench into this hypothesis.
The theory sounds ok until i heard "as little as 2000 years ago" sorry chumps, but if the whole planet was a snow ball in recorded history WE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT IN ANCIENT TEXTS. NEXT PLEASE!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
SNOW BALL FIGHT!!!
and for everyone saying that man kind has an adverse affect on the Earth all I have to say is Agent Smith had it right in the Matrix. Man kind is a parasite.
So many choices, so little tolerance.
Melted over the span of 2000 years. Not 2000 years ago.
God be damned, you are @$#%! NUMB!
Do not post here ever again.
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Good point - a lot of the born agains that slam science don't believe in Jesus either execept as a convenient name . Their God hates poor people and does what he's told for the merchants in the temple - but what would I know as an infidel - Oral Roberts excommunicated my entire continent because customs officals pissed him off.
'lowering greenhouse gases to present levels triggers a snowball earth in most climate models'
!sig
But you must be on crack. "The Earth is currently in the same magnetic configuration..." Take a look at this: http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/reversals.html and tell me the magnetic "configuration" hasn't changed for 100s of millions of years.
I was under the impression that many of those who have been
end up this way because they have drawn their "conclusions" in spite of the evidence and because of politics and/or finance. That is no way to conduct science and should always be treated in this way!I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Again I am pointing out to the submitter: why not mentioning the original peer-reviewed article (OPRA)? At least the source of it: Nature. Insasmuch I despise this pileload of pseudoscience which Nature is, it has the highest impact factor among the general science journals with peer-reviewed articles.
./ regularly would appreciate that. All academics have free access to Nature and many industrial scientists do as well.
I am pretty sure tons of specialists that visit
Here is the OPRA link.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
...God just shook it and the window on top said, "Cannot Predict Now".
(he'll shake it again soon)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I am a computational biophysicist, not a geologist or paleontologist. Is there evidence that (a) those traces of former ice were collected in many different latitidues (b) that they refer to the times of the same geological time in history?
For now I am assuming a simpler explanation than the snowball Earth: movement of the places where the samples have been collected from the areas close to the arctic zones to where they are now. Different places have ice because they have been close to the arctic zones at different times.
This assumption is based on that we know that continents move at the rate scale compatible with the one described in the Snowball hypothesis: see Gondwana.
Another interesting question: Science abstract says: "biological productivity in the surface ocean collapsed for millions of years". Does it mean the life had to start again? The biological molecules could be probably kept more or less intact, but it is not clear how cell assembly could be restored.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Here's a webcam view of the local railway station area.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Well that's just it! This evidence shows that, despite shifts, the magnetic field has always fallen into a more-or-less stable "dipole" arrangement that has remained the 'average' after a shift.
Yes, but for the field to flip, it has to go through a period of effectively no magnetic field, which while short, does persist for I think a couple thousand years each time. Considering that the field flips on average every few hundred thousand years, then on a rough average, somewhere around a percent of the volcanic rocks would have cooled during periods of no or extremely weak field. If that's the case, they may have simply found one of the many formations that solidified in non-equatorial climes during a time of no/weak field.
While this doesn't actually invalidate the snowball theory, it certainly offers a compelling, likely, and simpler alternative. Occam's razor suggests this would be the default conclusion unless better evidence is found for the "snowball."
That said, it's a decent site, and they have a variety of pieces of evidence beyond this. They also have a page with major criticisms of the theory, followed by their rebuttals, and they're honest in stating where the strength of their rebuttals is weak. As a scientist, I give a lot more credence to people who acknowledge weaknesses in their hypotheses.
I'd say this is an interesting if unproven theory.
I just watched a show on this on the Science Channel. It was pretty good. If you're interested in it, you should check for a re-broadcast.
So you fled techdirt and ended up here posting useless crap?
How charming. I'll let the people of slashdot try to provide you with the education you need.
Jeez, has it really been that long? Man, I must be getting old.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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If all of those dinosaurs had just driven hybrids, that never would have happened.
The climate models described by the article point to the radiation received from the sun and the heat radiated into space but they don't seem to consider the heat originating from within the earth itself. It is obvious that the earth produces an enormous amount of heat from within, probably from radioactive decay, that affects temperatures at the surface (i.e. our 'climate') and yet the climate models never seem to consider that heat as an input into the model. The frequent and wide variations in the earth's climate over the last 500 million years may be partly caused by changes in the heat output from the Earth's core. Certainly there is no reason to think that that heat output is 'constant' if it originates from radioactive decay since there would have been a radioactive decay chain followed over that length of time that would have significantly changed the isotope mixtures and heat produced. It seems like at least the popular view of climate science is stuck on a simplistic view of climate driven by the 'greenhouse effect.' There must be some actual scientists somewhere who are a little more sophisticated in their modeling. Carbon dioxide and the 'greenhouse effect' simply don't explain the climate that the earth has experienced over the last 500 million years or even over the last 21,000 years.
At the moment the question seems to be "Are humans having a serious negative impact on the global climate?"
This is used to reinforce the status quo, right? It's not our fault, what we're doing isn't the problem, so why bother stopping what we're doing?
It seems to me like the questions should be:
"Is the climate changing?"
"Is it changing in a way that will benefit humanity?"
"If not, how do we manufacture the change we desire?"
These questions should be framed with the idea that the climate is changing and will eventually wipe life as we know it off the face of the Earth. Eventually, something will replace all that biodiversity. But mankind won't be around to see it, so it behooves us as a species to guarantee our own survival by making sure the climate changes in a manner that allows us to continue to thrive.
Sorry dude, maybe you should take another year of Physics.
Quadrupole
They're used in particle accelerators all the time.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Gondwana is too recent. You need to look back to Rodinia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodinia
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I can see how the Snowball Earth might have worked, but it's the surviving life under the ice that I can't quite accept. The idea of the Sun's energy penitrating the ice sufficiently to keep plants and microbes alive for such a long period of time seems to be a very weak argument at best.
-MerkX
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Summary of article: New research supports the idea that certain rocks found where there were glaciers 600 million years ago were, at that time, near the equator, so there must have been glaciers around the world.
Good summary. It does remind me of a cute geographical trivia question that I ran across a few years ago: Can you name the two places where there are currently glaciers on the equator?
After a bit of thought, most people think of Ecuador, though they usually can't name the mountain. But they are usually stumped by the second place. A few people do guess the right continent, but then name the wrong mountain.
Anyway, there are right now two places where glacial remains are being created right on the equator. But that doesn't mean the entire world is glaciated.
But if you want to visit those spots, you'd better do so soon. Those glaciers are retreating fast, and predictions are that they'll be gone in a decade or two.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Well, this planet isn't the planet I was taught when in elementary school. Damn, I shudder to think what all this information is doing to today's school age children. Yes, the planet is alive and it changes and it gets angry all the time. Gravity fluxes around. Snows will engulf this planet like a Biblical plague. The geomagnetic poles move. Sunlight causes cancer. A polluted ocean begins to absorb and hold more heat which fuels the hurricanes, which are nothing more than the planet trying to cool itself by throwing oceanwater tonnage into the air like a fountain.
My belief is that this global warming is temporary and that -just like how a warm cup of water cools faster- this planet is going to be plunged into another ice age. When that happens I don't know but I suspect when it does it's going to be fast as the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was trying to depict. Unlike the movie, Mexico and the Earth's Equator will be frozen as well, and there will be no escape, nowhere to hide but under a warm blankie if you can find it. We can argue statistics all we want, what happens first & how fast, but what matters is that all of us including the nerve-wracked school kids get a unified plan. There's several systems we need to develop for making planet Earth a life-friendly place we can live even if it turns into a chunk of ice and we need to develop them asap. #1 would be a home electrical generating system that does not depend on any fuels having to be drilled or carried around by delivery trucks. When it gets THAT COLD delivery trucks and delivery drivers will not be able to move. World delivery of fuels will be frozen, at which point EACH HOME HAS TO BE A SELF-SUFFICIENT ENCLOSED AND TIGHT Dwelling place for a very long time. Fortunately we have the Internet for total connectivity with family wherever they all live, and each other, for a continuation of our entertainment lifestyle, music, movies, dance, the arts, home schooling services and education videos for how-to do home caesarean operations and other medical needs as the doctor won't be coming. Home energy independence means power for home-growing vegetables {oxygen generation}, water purification, and home-size fisherie tanks.#2 is we need to develop engines if possible that can run without standard fuels {air + steam dual catalyst} since there won't be any regular fuels left once they peak out on our new ice planet. #3 would be -again if possible- space flight capability for everyone not just the privileged few who can afford it, which means a family size spacecraft. Why? Because if Earth conditions worsen to a point we just cannot survive we need to hit the highway and get out of Dodge, that's why.
For the schoolchildren's sanity I wrote the following "Friendly Planet" webpage > http://www.newpath4.com/friendlyplanetalternativer enewablegreenenergysources.htm . As for the future needs listed above, my engines do all those things. I am not a "scientist" as I could not attend college due to a serious and rare thyroid poisoning problem that wrecked my concentration, so my engines have been pooh poohed and discounted. My engines could be developed within 10 year's time. New nuclear power plants take 400% that construction time and more, and even if we had them the electricity has to be delivered by power lines which will be torn down by the weather. In the last two months 1,250,000+ Americans and Japanese have been deprived of electric service by local weather. This is just a microcosm of what is coming. The world is going to be a very unfriendly place. Each home needs to be built better than Noah's ark. Putting entire families on Prozac is not the answer. Protecting the Economy staples like the world crude oil industry is not the answer. Now is a good time to depart onto a new path >
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
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