Monday, July 14, 2008

Was there a "Snowball Earth" in Our Past?

A new article in the Daily Galaxy says yes! The Earth, in its' distant past was once covered completely by glaciers according to new scientific evidence. The “Snowball Earth” hypothesis, suggests that Earth was entirely covered by ice during the Cryogenian period, which took place from about 790 to 630 million years ago. During that period an extremely high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, at least 40 times the modern level was present. Even the entire oceans were frozen over for a period lasting millions of years. This freakish condition has been researched by LSU scientist Huiming Bao, along with colleagues from UCLA and China, who recently discovered some of the first atmospheric evidence in support of the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis.

<read more>

No comments: