Scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas have determined the geological conditions under which a global cooling occurred on the Earth 700 million years ago, as a result of which the planet was completely covered with ice. According to researchers, climate change is associated with the emergence and movement of lithospheric plates. This was reported in a press release Phys.org.
The Snowball Earth hypothesis explains why glacial sediments were deposited in tropical latitudes during the cryogenic period. According to the assumption, then at the equator it was as cold as at the poles of the planet. The ice age lasted for millions of years until a sufficient amount of greenhouse gases emitted by volcanoes accumulated in the atmosphere. The continents in the equatorial regions were freed from ice, as a result of which the processes of chemical weathering began and the enrichment of ocean waters with minerals necessary for the growth of bacteria. Subsequently, multicellular life forms developed, contributing to global warming.
Researchers suggest that the Earth is completely frozen over due to the appearance of lithospheric plates. It is believed that at first the earth's crust was continuous, and its division into separate large fragments occurred later. According to geologists, the lithosphere split 600-800 million years ago, which triggered processes on the planet's surface, including volcanic eruptions and continental displacement, which ultimately led to the appearance of the "Snowball Earth".