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| A Neoproterozoic snowball earth |
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| Author(s): Hoffman PF, Kaufman AJ, Halverson GP, Schrag DP |
| Source: SCIENCE Volume: 281 Issue: 5381 Pages: 1342-1346 Published: AUG 28 1998 |
| Times Cited: 692 References: 65 |
| 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. |
| Document Type: Article |
| Language: English |
| Reprint Address: Hoffman, PF (reprint author), Harvard Univ, Dept Earth & Planetary Sci, 20 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA |
Addresses:
1. Harvard Univ, Dept Earth & Planetary Sci, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
2. Univ Maryland, Dept Geol, College Pk, MD 20742 USA |
| Publisher: AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE, 1200 NEW YORK AVE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20005 USA |
| Subject Category: Multidisciplinary Sciences |
| IDS Number: 115LQ |
| ISSN: 0036-8075 |
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| | | | | | | | | Record from Web of Science® | | | | | | | | | |