Snowball Earth Lab Report
GG310 OCEANOGRAPHY
Evaluate the geological evidence for so-called ‘Snowball Earth’ glacial episodes in the Precambrian and the hypothesis that these episodes were critical in the evolution of complex life.
Introduction
The hypothesis of Snowball Earth explores the possibility of the Earth’s surfaces having been frozen over during the Cryogenian period. The initial notion was thought to be from the glacial deposits which occurred around the world parallel to the same time frame. This led scientist to question whether the global freezing was the cause of this or polar glacial drift . Unfortuantley, the geologist’s theories are not in agreement with the palentologist’s model. It is a fact that if Earth was to freeze and become covered with multiple layers of ice sheets this would result in the single cell organism such as cynobacteria to have become extinct. If this was the case, then the Cambrian explosions which would have occurred after this even could not been explained. During the course of this essay, I will be analysing the geological evidence of Snowball Earth and the importance of evolution amongst complex life. Snowball Earth is the key to understanding the importance of this period as it is understood to be the trigger for multicellular evolution, which allowed the divierity of complex …show more content…
This allowed the geologist to calculate the origin of the glacier within 10 degrees of the equator. However, some sceptic believes this is not conclusive evidence as they question the accuracy of the data because Earth’s magnetic has changed during the course of time and the continental drift has now become dipolar. We are able to come to a conclusion that the data collected do indicate that the Marinoan glaciation was very close to the equator therby giving us an idea of the temperatures of the warmest regions of the
Evaluate the geological evidence for so-called ‘Snowball Earth’ glacial episodes in the Precambrian and the hypothesis that these episodes were critical in the evolution of complex life.
Introduction
The hypothesis of Snowball Earth explores the possibility of the Earth’s surfaces having been frozen over during the Cryogenian period. The initial notion was thought to be from the glacial deposits which occurred around the world parallel to the same time frame. This led scientist to question whether the global freezing was the cause of this or polar glacial drift . Unfortuantley, the geologist’s theories are not in agreement with the palentologist’s model. It is a fact that if Earth was to freeze and become covered with multiple layers of ice sheets this would result in the single cell organism such as cynobacteria to have become extinct. If this was the case, then the Cambrian explosions which would have occurred after this even could not been explained. During the course of this essay, I will be analysing the geological evidence of Snowball Earth and the importance of evolution amongst complex life. Snowball Earth is the key to understanding the importance of this period as it is understood to be the trigger for multicellular evolution, which allowed the divierity of complex …show more content…
This allowed the geologist to calculate the origin of the glacier within 10 degrees of the equator. However, some sceptic believes this is not conclusive evidence as they question the accuracy of the data because Earth’s magnetic has changed during the course of time and the continental drift has now become dipolar. We are able to come to a conclusion that the data collected do indicate that the Marinoan glaciation was very close to the equator therby giving us an idea of the temperatures of the warmest regions of the