Journal ArticleDOI
A Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth
TLDR
Negative carbon isotope anomalies in carbonate rocks bracketing Neoproterozoic glacial deposits in Namibia, combined with estimates of thermal subsidence history, suggest that biological productivity in the surface ocean collapsed for millions of years.Abstract:
Negative carbon isotope anomalies in carbonate rocks bracketing Neoproterozoic glacial deposits in Namibia, combined with estimates of thermal subsidence history, suggest that biological productivity in the surface ocean collapsed for millions of years. This collapse can be explained by a global glaciation (that is, a snowball Earth), which ended abruptly when subaerial volcanic outgassing raised atmospheric carbon dioxide to about 350 times the modern level. The rapid termination would have resulted in a warming of the snowball Earth to extreme greenhouse conditions. The transfer of atmospheric carbon dioxide to the ocean would result in the rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate in warm surface waters, producing the cap carbonate rocks observed globally.read more
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Assembly, configuration, and break-up history of Rodinia: A synthesis
Zheng-Xiang Li,Zheng-Xiang Li,Svetlana Bogdanova,Alan S. Collins,A. Davidson,B. De Waele,Richard E. Ernst,Ian C.W. Fitzsimons,Reinhardt A. Fuck,Dmitry P. Gladkochub,Joachim Jacobs,Karl E. Karlstrom,S. Lu,L. M. Natapov,Victoria Pease,Sergei Pisarevsky,Kristine Thrane,Valery A. Vernikovsky +17 more
TL;DR: A brief synthesis of the current state of knowledge on the formation and break-up of the early Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia and the subsequent assembly of Gondwanaland is presented in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The snowball Earth hypothesis: testing the limits of global change
Paul Hoffman,Daniel P. Schrag +1 more
TL;DR: The recent discovery that late Neoproterozoic ice sheets extended to sea level near the equator poses a palaeoenvironmental conundrum as discussed by the authors, which does not account for major features such as abrupt onsets and terminations of discrete glacial events, their close association with large (> 10&) negative d 13 C shifts in seawater proxies, the deposition of strange carbonate layers (cap carbonates) globally during postglacial sea-level rise, and the return of large sedimentary iron formations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Efficacy of climate forcings
James Hansen,James Hansen,Makiko Sato,Reto Ruedy,Larissa Nazarenko,Andrew A. Lacis,Andrew A. Lacis,Gavin A. Schmidt,Gavin A. Schmidt,Gary L. Russell,I. Aleinov,Mike Bauer,Susanne E. Bauer,N. Bell,Brian Cairns,Vittorio Canuto,Mark A. Chandler,Yu Cheng,A. D. Del Genio,A. D. Del Genio,G. Faluvegi,Eric L. Fleming,Andrew D. Friend,Timothy M. Hall,Timothy M. Hall,Charles H. Jackman,M. Kelley,Nancy Y. Kiang,D. Koch,D. Koch,Judith Lean,J. Lerner,Ken K. Lo,Surabi Menon,Ron L. Miller,Ron L. Miller,Patrick Minnis,T. Novakov,Valdar Oinas,Ja. Perlwitz,J. Perlwitz,David Rind,David Rind,Anastasia Romanou,Anastasia Romanou,Drew Shindell,Drew Shindell,Peter Stone,Shan Sun,Shan Sun,N. Tausnev,D. Thresher,Bruce A. Wielicki,Takmeng Wong,Mao-Sung Yao,S. Zhang +55 more
TL;DR: The authors used a global climate model to compare the effectiveness of many climate forcing agents for producing climate change and found that replacing traditional instantaneous and adjusted forcings with an easily computed alternative, Fs, yields a better predictor of climate change, i.e., its efficacies are closer to unity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Precambrian geology of China
Guochun Zhao,Peter A. Cawood +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a model for the origin of the 2.55-2.50-Ga metamorphic pulse in the North China Craton (NCC), which is interpreted as a major phase of juvenile crustal growth in the craton.
Journal ArticleDOI
U-Pb ages from the neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation, China
TL;DR: U-Pb zircon dates from volcanic ash beds within the Doushantuo Formation (China) indicate that its deposition occurred between 635 and 551 million years ago, indicating synchronous deglaciation.
References
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