Complex multicellular life arose in a geological nanosecond (within about 3 million years) of the termination of Earth’s last of 3 protracted global glaciations or “snowball Earths”. An explosion in biological diversity followed and ushered in a 20-fold increase in atmospheric oxygen. The world changed in a fundamental way almost overnight. The geological context for this biological and climatic bifurcation was the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia: a tectonic bifurcation of sorts. The confluence of events make this period one of the richest in Earth history. We don’t have a lot of time for this story but it is one you should know about. We will read just a couple of papers and explore how the evidence is constructed for this story: How the geological and geochemical data permit such a story. This is the first of 3 modules in which we look carefully at time series data and explore conceptual or quantitative models applied to make sense of it.
Learning Goals for This Module (TBA)
Reading:
Hoffman and Schrag: Snowball Earth
Hoffman: The Pan-glacial state
