Four-million-year Marinoan snowball shows multiple routes to deglaciation.

ABSTRACT: Twice during the Neoproterozoic Era, Earth experienced runaway ice-albedo catastrophes that resulted in multimillion year, low-latitude glaciations: the Sturtian and Marinoan snowball Earths. In the snowball climate state, CO₂ consumption through silicate weathering collapses, and atmospheric CO₂ accumulates via volcanic outgassing until a sufficiently strong greenhouse causes deglaciation. The duration and extent of ice cover are critical for planetary habitability, both on exoplanets and on Earth where animals emerged between the two glaciations. Radioisotopic ages have defined the duration of the Sturtian glaciation to 56 Myr, but the duration of the Marinoan glaciation (4 to 15 Myr) currently has 11 Myr of uncertainty. Here, we show that the Marinoan glaciation in

SUBMITTER: Tasistro-Hart AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12067226 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature