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."

Comments

Frost post!

[Harmonious Botch]

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.

Cavemen

[flyingfsck]

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.