Researchers examine rocks from before and after a major glaciation event called Snowball Earth to describe an evolutionary transition.
A view of Garbh Eileach, the largest island in the Garvellach island chain where the gradational transition into snowball Earth is recorded. The years between 662 million years and 700 million years ago — just before and after glaciers left a half-mile thick rock layer — were mysterious.
Now, researchers have examined a rock feature showing what life on the planet was like — both before the freeze and after the subsequent thaw. TheMany rock formations created by that glaciation event — for instance in North America and Namibia — don’t show the “before and after” transition. However, researchers located one exposed outcrop of a rock formation that spanned Ireland and Scotland.
Underneath the rocks laid down during the glaciation, the scientists found an earlier layer of rocks over 200 feet thick. These carbonate rocks formed in tropical waters and recorded a tropical marine environment that teemed with bacterial life that gradually tapered off as the planet cooled.“The retreat of the ice would have been catastrophic,” Shields said. “Life had been used to tens of millions of years of deep freeze.
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