Way before the warmth of land enabled complex life forms to make their homes, the planet went through its strongest frozen periods that were unlike any other season.
Snowball or Slushball Earth
As per Science Alert, the planet became an ice wasteland as ice fingers stretched far from the earth's poles. The extent, however, has remained a mystery. Some think that ice covered all latitudes, while others think that equatorial latitudes were quite ice-free.
This basically encapsulates the two major hypotheses regarding the earth's strongest frozen periods: the "Snowball Earth" and the "Slushball Earth."
As per Interesting Engineering, the snowball theory indicates that the planet was fully covered with ice. On the other hand, the slushball hypothesis claims that, during these strongest freezing periods, the surface did not succumb to total freezing.
For a long time, experts have debated whether complex primordial life was able to live through the Marinoan Snowball Earth periods of frozenness. This roughly took place around 654 to 635 million years ago.
There is also limited fossil evidence to help get a grasp of the survival conditions during this time. However, a recent study has now shed light on this.
Survival of Primordial Life During the Earth's Strongest Frozen Periods
As per Science Alert, this new study by China and UK researchers is the most recent to argue that the earth was not fully drenched in ice and that it may have been habitable to some extent. The study was published in Nature Communications.
The research suggests that there could have been open water patches that offered shelter to primordial life, enabling some earlier life forms to survive through the planet's extreme climate. The scientists were able to reach such a conclusion after they looked into the geochemical content of sediments rich in fossils that were spotted in the late Cryogenian Natio Formation.
Such sediments date back to 654 to 635 million years ago, which was when the planet endured its strongest frozen periods.
The fossils are reportedly similar to photosynthesizing algae that dwell on the sea floor.
The researchers also explained that the chemistry of iron demonstrated the poor oxygenation of the water. However, recycling of aerobic nitrogen may have taken place in the surface water that was oxygenated.
The specific sediments were deposited between 30 and 40 degrees north. This is significantly further north than any unfrozen body of water could have been assumed to be situated.
Such open-ocean areas could have served as a shelter for primordial life to dwell and flourish. This, in turn, also favors the Slushball Earth hypothesis, which holds that the earth was not fully icy, rather than the snowball one.
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