DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Snowball Earth

**jisee** · 09-02-2012, 11:30 PM

700 million years ago, according to Science, the Earth was covered with a mile of ice, pole-to-pole. (Can you believe it?)

How the heck did that happen?

Well, They say it happened because all the continents had randomly accumulated near the equator. (You know how they wander about, drifting Continentally). Which, They say, resulted in an unprecedented level of ‘weathering’ (the reaction between rock and air, and water) that sucked the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere.

That’s the cause: weathering sucked the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere.

(I know, my attention span is waning, even as I write this)

So what?

So… without the Greenhouse Gas(s), the temperature dropped. Ice-world. Pole to pole. Imagine it. Equatorial glaciers.

So the Earth was a snowball – pole to pole. For millions of years.

How did Life survive that? (I asked myself.)

The short answer is; it just did, as bacteria. It just toughed it out, living in the ice, eking out existence from the sun, or even, completely in the dark, from rock itself. Life it, seems, will find a way. These life-forms are still doing these unlikely things to this day. So, we know they can.

99% of life died. There were ice-living survivors (which are still findable in the deep ice caves of today).

From this bacteria evolved you.

Oh yes, the question. (Got carried away with the grandeur of the thought)

The question: according to Science, the melt of the global snowball allowed, or seemed to produce, multi-cellular creatures. After the Big Melt, Life exploded into forms that we could see with the naked eye. Without it, we wouldn’t.

To quote one Australian scientist: “If it hadn’t been for this (global) ice-age, it would have been slime-world forever.”

Is this true?

Should this be a factor in the Drake Equation?

09-02-2012, 11:30 PM	#1
jisee Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 389 Senior Member	Snowball Earth – Essential for Multicellular Life? 700 million years ago, according to Science, the Earth was covered with a mile of ice, pole-to-pole. (Can you believe it?) How the heck did that happen? Well, They say it happened because all the continents had randomly accumulated near the equator. (You know how they wander about, drifting Continentally). Which, They say, resulted in an unprecedented level of ‘weathering’ (the reaction between rock and air, and water) that sucked the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere. That’s the cause: weathering sucked the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere. (I know, my attention span is waning, even as I write this) So what? So… without the Greenhouse Gas(s), the temperature dropped. Ice-world. Pole to pole. Imagine it. Equatorial glaciers. So the Earth was a snowball – pole to pole. For millions of years. How did Life survive that? (I asked myself.) The short answer is; it just did, as bacteria. It just toughed it out, living in the ice, eking out existence from the sun, or even, completely in the dark, from rock itself. Life it, seems, will find a way. These life-forms are still doing these unlikely things to this day. So, we know they can. 99% of life died. There were ice-living survivors (which are still findable in the deep ice caves of today). From this bacteria evolved you. Oh yes, the question. (Got carried away with the grandeur of the thought) The question: according to Science, the melt of the global snowball allowed, or seemed to produce, multi-cellular creatures. After the Big Melt, Life exploded into forms that we could see with the naked eye. Without it, we wouldn’t. To quote one Australian scientist: “If it hadn’t been for this (global) ice-age, it would have been slime-world forever.” Is this true? Should this be a factor in the Drake Equation?
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