Snowball Earth

This topic submitted by Chelsea Dorman, Lisa Headen ( Dormancs@muohio.edu ) on 5/5/04 .

Global Climate Change -Western Program-Miami University

The primary purpose of our research was to find out if Snowball Earth actually occurred. Evidence of a climate change like this can be found in geological records. We looked at these geological records to determine whether or not a period of global glaciation was possible. We found that at least one Snowball Earth event has occurred. It was caused by a variety of factors, including continental drift, Carbon Dioxide emissions and albedo. This information is useful because it provides a reference of information that we can compare to the current climate of the Earth and look for a correlation to see what led to Snowball Earth. Snowball Earth clearly had a large impact on the earth and it could even have been responsible for the Pre-Cambrian explosion of life. We predict that a snowball earth may not happen again, but since there is some evidence that more than one snowball earth could have occured, it may be possible for a slushball earth to occur.

View the whole website here /studentresearch/climate_projects_04/snowball_earth/web/webpage.html

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