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Some have claimed that his article is POV-ridden, but I personally find it to go beyond that. The intro and first two chapters is not trying to convince the reader about the validity of this hypothesis, it takes it for granted, and present it more or less as a fact. To the extent of my knowledge is there no consensus regarding this hypothesis, and the article ought to reflect that. -- Sparviere ( talk) 23:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
"The geological community generally accepts this hypothesis" Got a reference for this statement? A quick google scholar search of "snowball earth diachronous" will show several hundred counter arguments. Cwmagee ( talk) 11:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
cleaned up that little section, it seemed confused before -- Ezkerraldean ( talk) 15:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Some portion of the population is getting this (dubious?) theory presented as fact by the highly respected television historian/archaeologist Tony Robinson. Now, the likelihood is that Robinson is wrong in this case but mention of it is definitely needed by a reader like me, who'd only ever heard of this theory because of last month's television show (which, in these days of digital and BBCi more than ever) will probably be widely and even repeatedly seen by everyone interested in science and pre-history (perhaps all over the world?). MalcolmMcDonald ( talk) 13:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Another episode of "Snowball Earth" on tonight, and Robinson is telling us that this is for sure how all multi-celled life came about. 25 million years of Snowball Earth broken came to an end due to large volcanoes burning through the ice and giving off lots of CO2. This encouraged the cyano-bacteria a clear field to turn it the CO2 into oxygen, triggering the development of multi-cell organisms. This rescued the world from being dominated by slime. Shouldn't someone tell him that this theory really isn't accepted? Or should the article mention him and his series rather than trying to pretend it's all black-magic?
MalcolmMcDonald (
talk)
21:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
"Dispute" definitely needs work - sourcing "its mathematically impossible to freeze the oceans" to [2] is unacceptable (BTW, being no longer a sci I don't ahve access to the paper - do you feel like mailing it to me?) William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment on this discussion. It's now a while since I studied Snowball, and there's not been too much new literature out recently to keep me fresh, so I may be a little out of touch. However, A brief summary of the current facts would be as follows.
I'll re-iterate the point that the content of a BBC show should have no bearing on the content of this article. This article may have PoV problems, but reliable sources are out there for the finding, and the collective time and knowledge of WP editors allows us to come to a more accurate conclusion than a BBC researcher trying to spin an interesting story, probably relying more on text-books than on up-to-the-minute primary literature. The BBC show did not cite its sources, I assume, so this article should rely only on verifiable sources.
Without further ado, here's my brief recollection of the argument:
Most of these points are in fact brought up and referenced in the article. While none of them disagree with widespread glaciation, the global extent looks very questionable.
The feeling in the popular press may be the 'sexy story' that the whole Earth was frozen, but recent scientific evidence makes that look more and more unlikely - I might go so far as to say impossible. I personally find the 'Sedimentary challenge to Snowball Earth' the most compelling argument against it. However, it is important that WP provides an accurate portrayal of both points of view.
I'm not sure what the best way of resolving the involved issues would be. As I see it there are two ways of structuring the article - either each piece of evidence or suggested mechanism should be presented in turn, with both the 'pro-snowball' and 'anti-snowball' interpretations presented; or the pro-snowball case should be stated; followed by the anti-snowball case. [It's not quite this clean-cut; there are 'middle grounders' who propose a 'slushball Earth'.] My preference, which I had originally aimed for in the 'Evidence' section at least, would be to present each point of the article with both points of view. I think the best thing to do would be, if enough interested editors are willing, to settle on one of these viewpoints, and work on getting the article properly referenced and unbiased.
I hope that these comments are vaguely helpful! Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 14:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm finding more indications of imbalance in this article, since it tries to persuade us that the SNOWBALL EARTH theory is generally unlikely, when the consensus/evidence may not agree (and I suspect this is a bad way to write an article anyway).
For instance, there is an (almost totally useless!) picture of a wind-blown ice-sheet with the caption "Global ice sheets may have delayed or prevented the establishment of multicellular life." But the article says the opposite - all references to "multi-cellular" seem to tell me the same thing that presenter Tony Robinson did, SE was a vital factor triggering complex organisms as we know them! I hesitate to edit this article, because it is much more nuanced and dense than I can yet fully understand, but I'm sure that picture and caption should come out.
MalcolmMcDonald (
talk)
09:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)I think that this article should be of more importance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom ( talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I saw a history channel (or similar channel) and maybe someone could get permission from them to use some of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom ( talk • contribs) 19:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
kailangan po na wag pong magputol ng three forest para po hindi po tayo magkaroon ng pagbaha sa ating kapaligiran kaya po iwasan po nating magputol ng mga puno ayan lang po ang aking palala sa nag puputol ng puno sa gubat natin dapat nating pangalagaan natin to —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.200.111.129 ( talk) 13:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
TRANSLATION FROM FILIPINO: Please mind that you do not cut the forest for three po po do not we have flooding in our environment so please please avoid the trees we cut here is my only retrograde to offer a full puputol we should protect our forest we have to. I don't know why this is here, is it that bad to delete nonsensical comments in a discussion page? Larryisgood ( talk) 15:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Hi. I've noticed most of this focuses on controversy about the later Precambrian (Cryogenian period) "Snowball" possibility. But is there anything more that could be said (other than the brief bit already here) about the even earlier Huronian glaciation in the deeper Precambrian around 2.2 billion years ago? Is there any new research on that that would resolve whether or not a "snowball Earth" had occured? mike4ty4 ( talk) 00:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I propose this article be tagged as POV because, perhaps accidentally, or perhaps as a side result of the cabal controlling
Global Warming and all articles on GW/AGW, it fails to deliver value to the reader.
A supporter of the article in it's current condition has written a thoughtful defense of the current state of the article on my TalkPage and he may well be right - Brittanica and New Scientist indeed treat this theory as likely false and up against unresolved scientific problems respectively.
However, public awareness rates Channel 4 and, in particular, the actor/presenter Tony Robinson, far higher than the august sources mentioned above - and our spokesman insists that even a mention of the documentary available on-line will never happen. I've since found a 2001 BBC documentary that appears to support SE as well.
I'm not prepared to argue with contentions made that seem to comply with no policy whatsoever, but I'd like this article to be tagged POV until someone else fights for the balance it deserves. MalcolmMcDonald ( talk) 16:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
The Cryogenian interval (850-635 Ma) is marked by glacial deposition on nearly every modern landmass except Antarctica (Hambrey & Harland 1981, 1985) during two episodes commonly referred to as the Sturtian and Marinoan (or Varanger) glaciations. What makes these two glaciations unusual is their severity compared with the Pleistocene glaciation, leading to the nickname 'snowball Earth' glaciations. [4]
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
Tagging this as POV due to Tony Robinson, or using TR as a source for the article, is absurd. MMD needs to get a clue about what science is, or stop trying to influence science articles. "I saw it on telly" is always the wrong answer for a science article.
Keep the current name. We're having too many profitless arguments about renaming William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I watched this BBC program on the Snowball Earth hypothesis. Forgive my naiveity but I was a bit puzzled though by the exit story that absolutely no precipitation meant CO2 build up to 10% over 10 million years. I thought even well below zero ice subliminated in strong sunlight (eg on the equator)? Surely a snowball would have winds, and therefore cloud and precipitation from the subliimination? -- BozMo talk 10:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5970/1186 William M. Connolley ( talk) 12:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Snowball Period | ||||||
−1000 — – −950 — – −900 — – −850 — – −800 — – −750 — – −700 — – −650 — – −600 — – −550 — | Sturtian Marinoan Gaskiers Kaigas (millions of years) | |||||
| ||||||
A recent estimate of the timing and duration of Proterozoic glacial periods. Note that great uncertainty surrounds the dating of pre-Gaskiers glaciations. The status of the Kaigas is not clear; its dating is very insecure and many workers do not recognise it as a glaciation. From Smith 2009.
[1] |
Are there any objections with replacing the existing timeline with one using {{ graphical timeline}}? I believe this is more readable, and allows for automatic colouring and placement of periods in the timeline. Also, from the discussion above, it appears there are some problems with the rendering of the existing timeline, which this could fix. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
References
New age dates from the
The "Marinoan" glaciation could be very short. See new age dates from Nantuo Formation in South China
"The age of the Nantuo Formation and Nantuo glaciation in South China" (PDF). Terra Nova. 20: 289–294. 2008.
doi:
10.1111/j.1365-3121.2008.00819.x. {{
cite journal}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors=
(
help) Aleksey (
Alnagov (
talk)
21:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC))
A portion of the Evidence section appears to be original research. I believe it is suspicious, and significant, for the following reasons:
I refer to the following portion:
"Critical to an assessment of the validity of the theory, therefore, is an understanding of the reliability and significance of the evidence that led to the belief that ice ever reached the tropics. This evidence must prove two things:
- that a bed contains sedimentary structures that could have been created only by glacial activity;
- that the bed lay within the tropics when it was deposited.
During a period of global glaciation, it must also be demonstrated that
- 3. glaciers were active at different global locations at the same time, and that no other deposits of the same age are in existence.
This last point is very difficult to prove. Before the Ediacaran, the biostratigraphic markers usually used to correlate rocks are absent; therefore there is no way to prove that rocks in different places across the globe were deposited at the same time. The best that can be done is to estimate the age of the rocks using radiometric methods, which are rarely accurate to better than a million years or so. [1]"
I recommend this portion of the evidence section be removed if a citations cannot be provided for each point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.91.254 ( talk) 20:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
9 Jan 2012 More study has recently being done to remagnetisation eg Rowan 2010, Font 2011, which casts doubts on postions of the paleo-magnetic poles, which also implies that low altitude glaciation may not have been on low lattitudes.
AndrePooh (
talk)
20:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
What is the point of this section? Apart from promoting a special group of researchers. There is lots of field work going on on this topic worldwide. I suggest this to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.238.141.50 ( talk) 16:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The evidence section start off mention the 'apparent presence of glaciers at tropical latitudes' this should surely be the 'apparent presence of sea level altitude glaciers at tropical latitudes', as I believe there are (still) glaciers on the top of Kilimanjaro, and in the equatorial Andes. 1812ahill ( talk) 17:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
The Initiating snowball earth section has this sentance: 'During the Cryogenian period, however, the Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes' when this is clearly contradicted by the maps of continental distributions in the section above it which show a polar centred distribution. Confusing! ( 1812ahill ( talk) 19:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
What could have happened to compensate for your discovery of certain minerals that could only form under a huge glacier and that glacier was in a landmass that plate tektonics placed it on the equator during the time it had the glacier has 2 possible explanations
1) the tracking of the plates backwards in time was done incorrectly and they weren't at the equator.
2) the landmass was in fact in the position of the current equator but the current equator may not be the same as the old equator (the entire crust of the earth shifted at some point in time and what you thought of was equator was in fact one of the poles)
it's easy to prove, just look at french polynesia and you'll see all the proof you desire. nothing caused those volcanic islands that collapsed to create the coral islands, no plate tektonics can cause them, and if the crust flipped over the island chain will fit in perfectly with the missing bit between hawaii and siberia. speaking of hot spots, you can see proof that the moon was made via a catastrophic strike by looking at the relationship between hawaii's hot spot and yellowstone's.
Wheller007 ( talk) 03:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: The result of the page move request was: Withdrawn by nominator. RockMagnetist ( talk) 21:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Please discuss here whether this late Precambrian geological period should be named "Snowball Earth" (uppercase S) or "snowball Earth" (lowercase s). Anthony Appleyard ( talk) 08:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the glacial deposits found is not really glacial. Can’t professional Geologists tell the difference between a rock layer formed from moraine and one formed from the result of landslides?
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
It has been suggested that the Earth may not have had its dipolar magnetic field back then. I think the interior of the Earth has been essentially the same for the past thousand million years. Anyone who can verify this?
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The world maps lack information on how long ago the positions of the continents it was based on were. I have wondered about this for a long time now.
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
I have noticed that the discussion of mechanisms to end the hypothesized Snowball Earth episodes does not include the idea of asteroid impacts. Even a small asteroid will throw up a large amount of dust that would cover the ice and turn sunlight into heat. Further the flood volcanism instigated on the opposite side of the planet by the impact's shock waves would throw up more dust and large quantities of carbon dioxide. The subsequent global warming event would then end the super-ice age. Over the past eon significant asteroid impacts and their associated flood volcanism have occurred roughly 60 million years apart, frequently enough to keep Earth mostly ice free. I can't believe that I am the only person who has conceive this idea. Surely some geologist somewhere has conceived it and published a paper describing it. All we need is a Wikipedian with expertise in the literature of geology to find that paper and improve this article accordingly. Kanawishi ( talk) 15:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
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The intro says the hypothetical snowballs occurred earlier than 650mya, but the accompanying geological timescale graphic shows two later snowball episodes. Are these latter snowballs not included in the "Snwoball Earth hypothesis"? AxelBoldt ( talk) 17:30, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
The article currently lists the date of creation of the term "snowball Earth" as 1992, based on the publication of Kirschvink (1992) [2] but this article [3] that interviews Paul Hoffman says Kirschvink came up with it in 1989 and that seems to be a pretty reputable source. Is that sufficient to change the date listed in the article? This article [4] also says 1989 but I'm not sure if that's more convincing since (1) it's written by the same author as the previous article and (2) the source listed in this article is snowballearth.org [5] and thus a self-published primary source. Thoughts? - Procyonidae ( talk) 22:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
References
Eyles2004
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
The idea of a snowball earth was defeated in a paper: Comment on ‘The Neoproterozoic (1000-540 Ma) glacial intervals: No more snowball earth?’ by Joseph G. Meert and Rob van der Voo Author links open overlay panelGeorge E.Williamsa1Phillip W.SchmidtbBrian J.J.Embletonc, where it wa shown that all the paleomagnetic data was in error and so, no snowball earth. 76.68.129.192 ( talk) 22:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
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Some have claimed that his article is POV-ridden, but I personally find it to go beyond that. The intro and first two chapters is not trying to convince the reader about the validity of this hypothesis, it takes it for granted, and present it more or less as a fact. To the extent of my knowledge is there no consensus regarding this hypothesis, and the article ought to reflect that. -- Sparviere ( talk) 23:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
"The geological community generally accepts this hypothesis" Got a reference for this statement? A quick google scholar search of "snowball earth diachronous" will show several hundred counter arguments. Cwmagee ( talk) 11:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
cleaned up that little section, it seemed confused before -- Ezkerraldean ( talk) 15:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Some portion of the population is getting this (dubious?) theory presented as fact by the highly respected television historian/archaeologist Tony Robinson. Now, the likelihood is that Robinson is wrong in this case but mention of it is definitely needed by a reader like me, who'd only ever heard of this theory because of last month's television show (which, in these days of digital and BBCi more than ever) will probably be widely and even repeatedly seen by everyone interested in science and pre-history (perhaps all over the world?). MalcolmMcDonald ( talk) 13:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Another episode of "Snowball Earth" on tonight, and Robinson is telling us that this is for sure how all multi-celled life came about. 25 million years of Snowball Earth broken came to an end due to large volcanoes burning through the ice and giving off lots of CO2. This encouraged the cyano-bacteria a clear field to turn it the CO2 into oxygen, triggering the development of multi-cell organisms. This rescued the world from being dominated by slime. Shouldn't someone tell him that this theory really isn't accepted? Or should the article mention him and his series rather than trying to pretend it's all black-magic?
MalcolmMcDonald (
talk)
21:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
"Dispute" definitely needs work - sourcing "its mathematically impossible to freeze the oceans" to [2] is unacceptable (BTW, being no longer a sci I don't ahve access to the paper - do you feel like mailing it to me?) William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment on this discussion. It's now a while since I studied Snowball, and there's not been too much new literature out recently to keep me fresh, so I may be a little out of touch. However, A brief summary of the current facts would be as follows.
I'll re-iterate the point that the content of a BBC show should have no bearing on the content of this article. This article may have PoV problems, but reliable sources are out there for the finding, and the collective time and knowledge of WP editors allows us to come to a more accurate conclusion than a BBC researcher trying to spin an interesting story, probably relying more on text-books than on up-to-the-minute primary literature. The BBC show did not cite its sources, I assume, so this article should rely only on verifiable sources.
Without further ado, here's my brief recollection of the argument:
Most of these points are in fact brought up and referenced in the article. While none of them disagree with widespread glaciation, the global extent looks very questionable.
The feeling in the popular press may be the 'sexy story' that the whole Earth was frozen, but recent scientific evidence makes that look more and more unlikely - I might go so far as to say impossible. I personally find the 'Sedimentary challenge to Snowball Earth' the most compelling argument against it. However, it is important that WP provides an accurate portrayal of both points of view.
I'm not sure what the best way of resolving the involved issues would be. As I see it there are two ways of structuring the article - either each piece of evidence or suggested mechanism should be presented in turn, with both the 'pro-snowball' and 'anti-snowball' interpretations presented; or the pro-snowball case should be stated; followed by the anti-snowball case. [It's not quite this clean-cut; there are 'middle grounders' who propose a 'slushball Earth'.] My preference, which I had originally aimed for in the 'Evidence' section at least, would be to present each point of the article with both points of view. I think the best thing to do would be, if enough interested editors are willing, to settle on one of these viewpoints, and work on getting the article properly referenced and unbiased.
I hope that these comments are vaguely helpful! Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 14:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm finding more indications of imbalance in this article, since it tries to persuade us that the SNOWBALL EARTH theory is generally unlikely, when the consensus/evidence may not agree (and I suspect this is a bad way to write an article anyway).
For instance, there is an (almost totally useless!) picture of a wind-blown ice-sheet with the caption "Global ice sheets may have delayed or prevented the establishment of multicellular life." But the article says the opposite - all references to "multi-cellular" seem to tell me the same thing that presenter Tony Robinson did, SE was a vital factor triggering complex organisms as we know them! I hesitate to edit this article, because it is much more nuanced and dense than I can yet fully understand, but I'm sure that picture and caption should come out.
MalcolmMcDonald (
talk)
09:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)I think that this article should be of more importance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom ( talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I saw a history channel (or similar channel) and maybe someone could get permission from them to use some of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom ( talk • contribs) 19:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
kailangan po na wag pong magputol ng three forest para po hindi po tayo magkaroon ng pagbaha sa ating kapaligiran kaya po iwasan po nating magputol ng mga puno ayan lang po ang aking palala sa nag puputol ng puno sa gubat natin dapat nating pangalagaan natin to —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.200.111.129 ( talk) 13:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
TRANSLATION FROM FILIPINO: Please mind that you do not cut the forest for three po po do not we have flooding in our environment so please please avoid the trees we cut here is my only retrograde to offer a full puputol we should protect our forest we have to. I don't know why this is here, is it that bad to delete nonsensical comments in a discussion page? Larryisgood ( talk) 15:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Hi. I've noticed most of this focuses on controversy about the later Precambrian (Cryogenian period) "Snowball" possibility. But is there anything more that could be said (other than the brief bit already here) about the even earlier Huronian glaciation in the deeper Precambrian around 2.2 billion years ago? Is there any new research on that that would resolve whether or not a "snowball Earth" had occured? mike4ty4 ( talk) 00:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I propose this article be tagged as POV because, perhaps accidentally, or perhaps as a side result of the cabal controlling
Global Warming and all articles on GW/AGW, it fails to deliver value to the reader.
A supporter of the article in it's current condition has written a thoughtful defense of the current state of the article on my TalkPage and he may well be right - Brittanica and New Scientist indeed treat this theory as likely false and up against unresolved scientific problems respectively.
However, public awareness rates Channel 4 and, in particular, the actor/presenter Tony Robinson, far higher than the august sources mentioned above - and our spokesman insists that even a mention of the documentary available on-line will never happen. I've since found a 2001 BBC documentary that appears to support SE as well.
I'm not prepared to argue with contentions made that seem to comply with no policy whatsoever, but I'd like this article to be tagged POV until someone else fights for the balance it deserves. MalcolmMcDonald ( talk) 16:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
The Cryogenian interval (850-635 Ma) is marked by glacial deposition on nearly every modern landmass except Antarctica (Hambrey & Harland 1981, 1985) during two episodes commonly referred to as the Sturtian and Marinoan (or Varanger) glaciations. What makes these two glaciations unusual is their severity compared with the Pleistocene glaciation, leading to the nickname 'snowball Earth' glaciations. [4]
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
Tagging this as POV due to Tony Robinson, or using TR as a source for the article, is absurd. MMD needs to get a clue about what science is, or stop trying to influence science articles. "I saw it on telly" is always the wrong answer for a science article.
Keep the current name. We're having too many profitless arguments about renaming William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I watched this BBC program on the Snowball Earth hypothesis. Forgive my naiveity but I was a bit puzzled though by the exit story that absolutely no precipitation meant CO2 build up to 10% over 10 million years. I thought even well below zero ice subliminated in strong sunlight (eg on the equator)? Surely a snowball would have winds, and therefore cloud and precipitation from the subliimination? -- BozMo talk 10:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5970/1186 William M. Connolley ( talk) 12:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Snowball Period | ||||||
−1000 — – −950 — – −900 — – −850 — – −800 — – −750 — – −700 — – −650 — – −600 — – −550 — | Sturtian Marinoan Gaskiers Kaigas (millions of years) | |||||
| ||||||
A recent estimate of the timing and duration of Proterozoic glacial periods. Note that great uncertainty surrounds the dating of pre-Gaskiers glaciations. The status of the Kaigas is not clear; its dating is very insecure and many workers do not recognise it as a glaciation. From Smith 2009.
[1] |
Are there any objections with replacing the existing timeline with one using {{ graphical timeline}}? I believe this is more readable, and allows for automatic colouring and placement of periods in the timeline. Also, from the discussion above, it appears there are some problems with the rendering of the existing timeline, which this could fix. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
References
New age dates from the
The "Marinoan" glaciation could be very short. See new age dates from Nantuo Formation in South China
"The age of the Nantuo Formation and Nantuo glaciation in South China" (PDF). Terra Nova. 20: 289–294. 2008.
doi:
10.1111/j.1365-3121.2008.00819.x. {{
cite journal}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors=
(
help) Aleksey (
Alnagov (
talk)
21:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC))
A portion of the Evidence section appears to be original research. I believe it is suspicious, and significant, for the following reasons:
I refer to the following portion:
"Critical to an assessment of the validity of the theory, therefore, is an understanding of the reliability and significance of the evidence that led to the belief that ice ever reached the tropics. This evidence must prove two things:
- that a bed contains sedimentary structures that could have been created only by glacial activity;
- that the bed lay within the tropics when it was deposited.
During a period of global glaciation, it must also be demonstrated that
- 3. glaciers were active at different global locations at the same time, and that no other deposits of the same age are in existence.
This last point is very difficult to prove. Before the Ediacaran, the biostratigraphic markers usually used to correlate rocks are absent; therefore there is no way to prove that rocks in different places across the globe were deposited at the same time. The best that can be done is to estimate the age of the rocks using radiometric methods, which are rarely accurate to better than a million years or so. [1]"
I recommend this portion of the evidence section be removed if a citations cannot be provided for each point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.91.254 ( talk) 20:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
9 Jan 2012 More study has recently being done to remagnetisation eg Rowan 2010, Font 2011, which casts doubts on postions of the paleo-magnetic poles, which also implies that low altitude glaciation may not have been on low lattitudes.
AndrePooh (
talk)
20:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
What is the point of this section? Apart from promoting a special group of researchers. There is lots of field work going on on this topic worldwide. I suggest this to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.238.141.50 ( talk) 16:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The evidence section start off mention the 'apparent presence of glaciers at tropical latitudes' this should surely be the 'apparent presence of sea level altitude glaciers at tropical latitudes', as I believe there are (still) glaciers on the top of Kilimanjaro, and in the equatorial Andes. 1812ahill ( talk) 17:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
The Initiating snowball earth section has this sentance: 'During the Cryogenian period, however, the Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes' when this is clearly contradicted by the maps of continental distributions in the section above it which show a polar centred distribution. Confusing! ( 1812ahill ( talk) 19:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
What could have happened to compensate for your discovery of certain minerals that could only form under a huge glacier and that glacier was in a landmass that plate tektonics placed it on the equator during the time it had the glacier has 2 possible explanations
1) the tracking of the plates backwards in time was done incorrectly and they weren't at the equator.
2) the landmass was in fact in the position of the current equator but the current equator may not be the same as the old equator (the entire crust of the earth shifted at some point in time and what you thought of was equator was in fact one of the poles)
it's easy to prove, just look at french polynesia and you'll see all the proof you desire. nothing caused those volcanic islands that collapsed to create the coral islands, no plate tektonics can cause them, and if the crust flipped over the island chain will fit in perfectly with the missing bit between hawaii and siberia. speaking of hot spots, you can see proof that the moon was made via a catastrophic strike by looking at the relationship between hawaii's hot spot and yellowstone's.
Wheller007 ( talk) 03:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: The result of the page move request was: Withdrawn by nominator. RockMagnetist ( talk) 21:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Please discuss here whether this late Precambrian geological period should be named "Snowball Earth" (uppercase S) or "snowball Earth" (lowercase s). Anthony Appleyard ( talk) 08:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the glacial deposits found is not really glacial. Can’t professional Geologists tell the difference between a rock layer formed from moraine and one formed from the result of landslides?
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
It has been suggested that the Earth may not have had its dipolar magnetic field back then. I think the interior of the Earth has been essentially the same for the past thousand million years. Anyone who can verify this?
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The world maps lack information on how long ago the positions of the continents it was based on were. I have wondered about this for a long time now.
2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
I have noticed that the discussion of mechanisms to end the hypothesized Snowball Earth episodes does not include the idea of asteroid impacts. Even a small asteroid will throw up a large amount of dust that would cover the ice and turn sunlight into heat. Further the flood volcanism instigated on the opposite side of the planet by the impact's shock waves would throw up more dust and large quantities of carbon dioxide. The subsequent global warming event would then end the super-ice age. Over the past eon significant asteroid impacts and their associated flood volcanism have occurred roughly 60 million years apart, frequently enough to keep Earth mostly ice free. I can't believe that I am the only person who has conceive this idea. Surely some geologist somewhere has conceived it and published a paper describing it. All we need is a Wikipedian with expertise in the literature of geology to find that paper and improve this article accordingly. Kanawishi ( talk) 15:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
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The intro says the hypothetical snowballs occurred earlier than 650mya, but the accompanying geological timescale graphic shows two later snowball episodes. Are these latter snowballs not included in the "Snwoball Earth hypothesis"? AxelBoldt ( talk) 17:30, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
The article currently lists the date of creation of the term "snowball Earth" as 1992, based on the publication of Kirschvink (1992) [2] but this article [3] that interviews Paul Hoffman says Kirschvink came up with it in 1989 and that seems to be a pretty reputable source. Is that sufficient to change the date listed in the article? This article [4] also says 1989 but I'm not sure if that's more convincing since (1) it's written by the same author as the previous article and (2) the source listed in this article is snowballearth.org [5] and thus a self-published primary source. Thoughts? - Procyonidae ( talk) 22:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
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The idea of a snowball earth was defeated in a paper: Comment on ‘The Neoproterozoic (1000-540 Ma) glacial intervals: No more snowball earth?’ by Joseph G. Meert and Rob van der Voo Author links open overlay panelGeorge E.Williamsa1Phillip W.SchmidtbBrian J.J.Embletonc, where it wa shown that all the paleomagnetic data was in error and so, no snowball earth. 76.68.129.192 ( talk) 22:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)