New analysis on distinctive sandstone formations within the Colorado Rocky Mountains could affirm that Earth skilled a large, planet-wide freeze often known as “Snowball Earth.” About 700 million years in the past, Earth’s floor was encased in ice, creating an excessive local weather the place youth not solely survived however later advanced into advanced multicellular organisms.

For many years, the Snowball Earth speculation was supported primarily by coastal sedimentary rocks and local weather fashions. Nonetheless, stable proof of ice sheets reaching the planet’s equatorial inside has remained elusive—till now. The current examine, printed within the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, identifies uncommon sandstone deposits known as Tava, discovered inside the granite formations of Colorado’s Pikes Peak. These sandstones possible shaped below the stress of ice sheets, supporting the Snowball Earth principle with new geological proof.

Tava sandstone formation linked to historic ice pressures

Pikes Peak, a sacred web site recognized to the Ute folks as Tavá Kaa-vi, is the supply of those Tava sandstone formations. Researchers found that the sandstones shaped when sandy, water-saturated sediment was compelled into weakened rock by the immense weight of ice sheets. The examine’s lead authors, Christine Siddoway and Rebecca Flowers, used superior radiometric courting to find out that Tava sandstones developed round 690 to 660 million years in the past, aligning with the Cryogenian Interval.

Utilizing iron minerals discovered with the sandstone, Siddoway’s staff employed uranium-lead courting to substantiate the Tava sandstone’s origins inside the Snowball Earth timeframe. The staff means that the ice sheets overlaying the equatorial Laurentia landmass, now a part of North America, created the pressures essential to kind these sandstone injectites.

Implications for understanding Earth’s climatic previous

This discovery strengthens the Snowball Earth speculation whereas additionally shedding gentle on different geological phenomena, together with “unconformities” the place erosion has eliminated massive parts of Earth’s rock report. The findings at Pikes Peak point out that comparable unconformities could predate Snowball Earth, suggesting advanced erosion processes over thousands and thousands of years. Scientists hope these insights will result in a deeper understanding of Earth’s local weather historical past and the processes that formed our liveable planet.