Revealed Reasons entire surface of the Earth Ever Covered with Snow

Genesis snowball earth or when the entire surface of the Earth covered with snow never occurred about 750 million years ago. The phenomenon was most likely triggered by extensive volcanic activity beneath sea level.

As stated in a report on the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience this week. It also helps to explain the beginning of animal life on Earth millions of years after the snowball earth period.

"Snowball earth is of extreme events and our planet is almost no survivors of that event," said Professor Eelco Rohling of the Australian National University, who wrote the study report.

"Our hypothesis explains several aspects of snowball earth through a single mechanism," he said.

During this time of snowball earth hypothesis states, almost the entire surface of the Earth is covered by snow at least once in the history of this planet, but the cause is not known for sure.

One theory is widely referenced for explaining that the layer of snow due to start the flow of water from the river to the ocean caused by the rupture of a large continent called Rodinia.

The water flow is changing the chemical makeup of the oceans, causing reduced levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

Because the thick layer of ice, then the sunlight reflected back, causing the Earth actually gets colder.

"In effect, the Earth entered a snowball situation where the ocean begins to freeze," explained Professor Rohling citing the theory.

This theory also explains that the Earth is in a situation like this for millions of years.

"However, according to the theory of volcanic activity on land and then release a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere and put an end to a period of snowball earth," said Professor Rohling.

Rohling and his team conduct various simulations which show that the breakup of the giant continent Rodinia it has unleashed volcanic chemicals that pollute the oceans and scrape CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to the theory developed by Rohling, at the beginning of the breakup of Rodinia continent, there was volcanic activity under the sea is very extensive and produce volcanic rocks called hyaloclastite with different chemical content.

"So far, the fundamental question is how can the very large continent sends so many minerals into the oceans when the land was still covered in ice," he said.

"Apparently, that's what did it hyaloclastite rocks - turning the oceans into a very rich with chemical content in the form of calcium, magnesium, silicon, and phoshorus," he said.

"At the moment the Earth re-warmed, the penetration of sunlight in the ocean allows berfotosintesa algal substances are very important in the development of animal life," said Professor Rohling. (Stuart Gary)