Throughout its approximately 4.54 billion-year history, Earth has experienced a variety of ice ages, from relatively mild to extreme. Researchers believe that our planet has experienced five ice ages of the second category; A particularly severe ice age occurred during the Cryogenic period, 720-630 million years ago. During the so-called Sturt glaciation, the Earth actually froze: the temperature dropped sharply, and thick-shelled ice masses formed over the entire surface of the planet. The frost was so severe that scientists now use the term “Snowball Earth” to refer to the Sturtian state of the planet.

How and why the Earth underwent such a violent metamorphosis approximately 700 million years ago has long remained a scientific mystery. But Australian researchers believe they have finally determined how Snow World came to be. INSIDE geological In a paper published Wednesday, a team of sedimentologists and tectonic geologists write that modern tectonic models reveal the possible cause of this brutal ice age and its 57-million-year duration.

The University of Sydney’s EarthByte computer models allowed the team to simulate behavior that would have characterized tectonic movements, geodynamics and processes on the Earth’s surface hundreds of millions of years ago. The model showed that after a “rearrangement of plate tectonics” ripped apart the ancient supercontinent Rodina, Earth experienced its lowest level of volcanic outgassing, which is responsible for most of the planet’s atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation. After all, there were no multicellular animals or land plants on Earth, so “geology was driving the climate,” according to study co-author Professor Dietmar Müller.

At the same time, the continental volcanic region in Canada began to erode. It is called approx. Franklin Province, 718 Ma, this geological structure is believed to have formed approximately 718 million years ago after a large amount of magma erupted from the Franklin Mountains in northern Canada and solidified into igneous rocks. Researchers state approximately: 718 Ma, Franklin Province experienced a relatively abrupt period of silicate weathering that absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over an extended period.

“The result was a drop in atmospheric CO2 to pre-glacial levels, which we estimate to be less than 200 parts per million, less than half today’s levels,” Muller said in a statement from the University of Sydney. said.

This marked drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide allowed the Earth to cool dramatically and caused the severe glaciation that marked the Cryogenic Era. In fact, this was the exact opposite of what we see today with the build-up of atmospheric greenhouse gases and the increasingly problematic rise in global temperatures. Why are these things connected? It all boils down to Pangea Ultima, a super-hot supercontinent that scientists believe could have formed within 250 million years. Using discoveries about the Stutrian glaciation, researchers can more accurately predict how Pangea Ultima formed and how human-caused climate change may alter its development.

The lead author of the study, Dr. “Whatever the future holds, it is important to note that geological climate change of the type studied here is extremely slow,” said Adriana Dutkiewicz. “According to NASA, human-caused climate change is happening 10 times faster than we’ve seen before.”