Snowball Earth - BookWyrm

Hardcover, 288 pages

English language

Published Dec. 19, 2003 by Crown Publishers, Crown.

ISBN:: 978-0-609-60973-6
OCLC Number:: 50292464

(1 review)

Publisher's description: "Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman's quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core. In lyrical prose that brings each remote and alluring locale vividly to life, Walker takes us on a thrilling natural history expedition to witness firsthand the supporting evidence Hoffman has pieced together. That evidence, he argues, shows that 700 million years ago the Earth did indeed freeze over completely, becoming a giant "snowball", in the worst climatic catastrophe in history. Even more startling is his assertion that, instead of ending life on Earth, this global deep freeze was the trigger for the Cambrian Explosion, the hitherto unexplained …

Publisher's description: "Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman's quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core. In lyrical prose that brings each remote and alluring locale vividly to life, Walker takes us on a thrilling natural history expedition to witness firsthand the supporting evidence Hoffman has pieced together. That evidence, he argues, shows that 700 million years ago the Earth did indeed freeze over completely, becoming a giant "snowball", in the worst climatic catastrophe in history. Even more startling is his assertion that, instead of ending life on Earth, this global deep freeze was the trigger for the Cambrian Explosion, the hitherto unexplained moment in geological time when a glorious profusion of complex life forms first emerged from the primordial ooze. In a story full of intellectual intrigue, we follow the irascible but brilliant Hoffman and a supporting cast of intrepid geologists as they scour the planet, uncovering clue after surprising clue. We travel to a primeval lagoon at Shark Bay in western Australia, where dolphins cavort with swimmers every morning at seven and "living rocks" sprout out of the water like broccoli heads; to the desolate and forbidding ice fields of a tiny Arctic archipelago seven hundred miles north of Norway; to the surprising fossil beds that decorate Newfoundland's foggy and windswept coastline; and on to the superheated salt pans of California's Death Valley. Through the contours of these rich and varied landscapes Walker teaches us to read the traces of geological time with expert eyes, and we marvel at the stunning feats of resilience and renewal our remarkable planet is capable of. Snowball Earth is science writing at its most gripping and enlightening."

"Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman's quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core.".

"In lyrical prose that brings each remote and alluring locale vividly to life, Walker takes us on a thrilling natural history expedition to witness firsthand the supporting evidence Hoffman has pieced together. That evidence, he argues, shows that 700 million years ago the Earth did indeed freeze over completely, becoming a giant "snowball," in the worst climatic catastrophe in history.

Even more startling is his assertion that, instead of ending life on Earth, this global deep freeze was the trigger for the Cambrian Explosion, the hitherto unexplained moment in geological time when a glorious profusion of complex life forms first emerged from the primordial ooze.".

"In a story full of intellectual intrigue, we follow the irascible but brilliant Hoffman and a supporting cast of intrepid geologists as they scour the planet, uncovering clue after surprising clue.

We travel to a primeval lagoon at Shark Bay in western Australia, where dolphins cavort with swimmers every morning at seven and "living rocks" sprout out of the water like broccoli heads; to the desolate and forbidding ice fields of a tiny Arctic archipelago seven hundred miles north of Norway; to the surprising fossil beds that decorate Newfoundland's foggy and windswept coastline; and on to the superheated salt pans of California's Death Valley."--BOOK JACKET.

7 editions

Lavinia reviewed Snowball Earth by Gabrielle Walker

Review of 'Snowball Earth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

he premise in the book is that a planet-wide ice age that happened between 750 and 590 million years ago, the Snowball, led to the so called Cambrian explosion, that is the development of complex multi-cellular life, and eventually to eventually to a species called homo sapiens. Snowball Earth is an engaging and fascinating story.

The premise in the book is that a planet-wide ice age that happened between 750 and 590 million years ago, the Snowball, led to the so-called Cambrian explosion, that is the development of complex multi-cellular life, and eventually to eventually to a species called homo sapiens. Snowball Earth is an engaging and fascinating story.

The theory was first put forth by Brian Harland of Cambridge University in 1964. The term Snowball Earth was coined by Joseph Kirschvink, a geologist from the California Institute of Technology, in 1992. But the main proponents of the theory …

he premise in the book is that a planet-wide ice age that happened between 750 and 590 million years ago, the Snowball, led to the so called Cambrian explosion, that is the development of complex multi-cellular life, and eventually to eventually to a species called homo sapiens. Snowball Earth is an engaging and fascinating story.
The premise in the book is that a planet-wide ice age that happened between 750 and 590 million years ago, the Snowball, led to the so-called Cambrian explosion, that is the development of complex multi-cellular life, and eventually to eventually to a species called homo sapiens. Snowball Earth is an engaging and fascinating story.

The theory was first put forth by Brian Harland of Cambridge University in 1964. The term Snowball Earth was coined by Joseph Kirschvink, a geologist from the California Institute of Technology, in 1992. But the main proponents of the theory in recent years have been Paul Hoffman and Daniel Schrag, both geologists at Harvard University. the two main foci of the book’s narrative.

Their theory is that when the continents drift together into supercontinents, such as Rodinia, at the end of the Pre-Cambrian Era, the mass drifted toward the equator, and that creates the right conditions for a snowball to set in as there would be no high-latitude continents to cover, and hence nothing to stop the ice going all the way. By the time ice reached the equatorial continents, it would be too late to prevent a Snowball.

It was only the molten rock and heat from earth’s volcanoes that prevented Earth from remaining frozen for ever. Then as now, Earth was scattered with volcanoes. The Snowball wouldn't have stopped them. They could erupt perfectly happily, even under ice- as they do today in Iceland. The lave from these volcanoes wouldn’t itself been enough to melt the ice. But with lava, gas comes too. An eruption can fling great clouds of gas high into the atmosphere. And one of the habitable gases to come from the heart of a volcano is carbon dioxide. The same gas that is now causing global warming, it also helped to make the Earth’s climate.

Recent dating techniques revealed that there were two Snowball Earths that occurred in rapid succession and were very unequal in duration. The first one lasted 58 million years and the second one only lasted 5 million to 15 million years. It is still known why there wasn’t a third or a fourth one.