Tectonic movements during the Sturtian ice age (VIDEO)

University of Sydney

Caption

Between 717 and 660 million years ago, the Earth was covered in snow and ice - a 57 million year ice age. University of Sydney geoscientists, led by Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz and Prof Dietmar Müller, have found the likely cause: all-time low levels of volcanic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This video shows motions of continents (grey) and plate boundaries (orange) from 850 to 540 million years ago.

(Snowflakes appear during the 'Snowball Earth' periods.)

Credit

Ben Mather and Dietmar Müller/The University of Sydney

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