The snowball Earth hypothesis: testing the limits of global change
Abstract
The gradual discovery that late Neoproterozoic ice sheets extended to sea level near the equator poses a palaeoenvironmental conundrum. Was the Earth's orbital obliquity > 60° (making the tropics colder than the poles) for 4.0 billion years following the lunar‐forming impact, or did climate cool globally for some reason to the point at which runaway ice‐albedo feedback created a `snowball' Earth? The high‐obliquity hypothesis does not account for major features of the Neoproterozoic glacial record such as the abrupt onsets and terminations of discrete glacial events, their close association with large (> 10‰) negative δ 13 C shifts in seawater proxies, the deposition of strange carbonate layers (`cap carbonates') globally during post‐glacial sea‐level rise, and the return of large sedimentary iron formations, after a 1.1 billion year hiatus, exclusively during glacial events. A snowball event, on the other hand, should begin and end abruptly, particularly at lower latitudes. It should last for millions of years, because outgassing must amass an intense greenhouse in order to overcome the ice albedo. A largely ice‐covered ocean should become anoxic and reduced iron should be widely transported in solution and precipitated as iron formation wherever oxygenic photosynthesis occurred, or upon deglaciation. The intense greenhouse ensures a transient post‐glacial regime of enhanced carbonate and silicate weathering, which should drive a flux of alkalinity that could quantitatively…
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Over millions of years, the carbonate-silicate feedback mechanism has helped stabilize global climate and is believed to have led to climatic recovery from past Snowball Earth events.
“Over millions of years, this feedback mechanism has helped stabilize global climate and is believed to have led to climatic recovery from past “Snowball Earth” events (Hoffman and Schrag, 2002).”
From The Astrobiology Primer v2.0 (2016) · cites this paper as Hoffman and Schrag, 2002
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- Authors
- Hoffman, P. F., & Schrag, D. P.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hoffman, Paul F.
- Venue
- Terra Nova
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2002-06
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 129-155
- ISSN
- 0954-4879 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-3121
- OpenAlex
- W2120852101
- Cited by
- 1,585
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 45 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 76 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 85 · 2018: 71 · 2017: 72 · 2016: 65 · 2015: 78 · 2014: 57 · 2013: 88 · 2012: 60
- FWCI
- 54.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Terra Nova (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Harvard University
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
- Keywords
- Neoproterozoic glaciation, ice-albedo feedback, cap carbonates, carbon isotope excursion, iron-formation, silicate weathering, orbital obliquity, global glaciation, deglaciation, carbonate sedimentation, planetary albedo
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