https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9l2mrn43jo
The Garvellach islands off the west coast of
Scotland are the best record of Earth entering
its biggest ever ice age around 720 million
years ago, researchers have discovered.
The big freeze, which covered nearly all the
globe in two phases for 80 million years, is
known as "Snowball Earth", after which the
first animal life emerged.
Clues hidden in rocks about the freeze have
been wiped out everywhere - except in the
Garvellachs. Researchers hope the islands
will tell us why Earth went into such an
extreme icy state for so long and why it
was necessary for complex life to emerge.
...
But the critical period leading up to
Snowball Earth was thought to be missing
because the rock layers were eroded by the
big freeze.
Now a new study by researchers at University
College, London, has revealed that the
Garvellachs somehow escaped unscathed. It
may be the only place on Earth to have a
detailed record of how the Earth entered one
of the most catastrophic periods in its
history – as well as what happened when the
first animal life emerged when the snowball
thawed hundreds of millions of years ago.
...
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