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Snowball Earth Research Paper

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Ice ages are well documented in Earth’s history, and they are proven to be relatively frequent. But what if that ice age persisted over not just regions near the poles, but around the equator as well? The term “snowball Earth” refers to a condition where Earth is completely covered by ice. Evidence indicates that snowball Earth may have been around in the Neoproterozoic. In fact, evidence points to the conclusion that these conditions happened three separate times in the Neoproterozoic. A snowball Earth condition is hard to prove, but this theory may explain several different phenomena. However, it is not accepted by all, there is evidence against a snowball Earth as well. Some believe that a snowball Earth would not have been possible in past climate conditions while there are views that defend the idea of more of a ‘slushball’ Earth rather than a planet entirely frozen on the surface. Iridium …show more content…

It was assumed that these carbon values were unaffected by the diagenesis since aqueous fluids typically have an insignificant amount of carbon in comparison to carbonate rocks. In addition, stratigraphic mapping showed that there was no tectonic activity in this area that would have affected diagenesis either. Results indicated that the proportion of organic carbon to total carbon burial changed from roughly 0.5 before the glacial deposits to virtually 0 immediately after. [Hoffman et al., 1998]. These numbers indicate that life struggled during this interval and the snowball Earth theory might explain why. Oceanic photosynthetic bacteria and eukaryotes would have been severely reduced because global ice cover would have blocked the sun making photosynthesis very difficult. (maybe also use top of 1344 to talk about theory on how snowball earth ended; Should I maybe use separate part of paper for theory and evidence. They tie together pretty

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