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Article: Frozen in time: concepts of 'global glaciation' from 1837 (die Eiszeit) to 1998 (the Snowball Earth).
- Article from:
- Geoscience Canada
- Article date:
- December 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Geological Association of Canada. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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INTRODUCTION
A completely ice-bound Earth, where life is arrested by extreme cold, is not a story out of science fiction but has been proposed to explain Neoproterozoic paleobiology and climates. The Snowball Earth hypothesis is the subject of considerable media interest on a par with global warming. The basic premise was originally outlined in 1837 by Louis Agassiz in his famous Discours de Neuchatel, in which he set out the case for die Eiszeit, a geologically recent Great Ice Age that had smothered the tropics and wiped out all life. A divine creator then introduced new species. Following widespread dismissal of Agassiz's controversial claim to have discovered ...