[User23]

I'm going to be a bit fanciful here, but it's a serious question. What implications does this have, if any, for the possibility of human civilizations older than currently known being completely erased by the ice? Is that plausible? How much rock would have to get scraped and pulverized into future magma to wipe out all evidence of a civilization?

[cbkeller]

To start with the last part

> How much rock would have to get scraped and pulverized into future magma to wipe out all evidence of a civilization?

it would take a lot. Even in the snowballs, when we had ice on every continent, there are still plenty of basins (mostly at the continental margins) where syn-glacial sediments are preserved; that is in part how we know the glaciations happened. While we have maybe 1/5th as much sedimentary rock volume per unit time prior to the end of the unconformity, that still leaves a lot!

At the time of the Cryogenian, both the fossil record and DNA-based molecular clocks suggest we didn't have multicellular animal life until after at least the first (Sturtian) glaciation. And we're talking basically just sponges (porifera) at first.

Of course, it's not impossible we could have another snowball in the far future (probably unlikely for several reasons, but never say never), and the question of what that would do to the record of modern human civilization is an interesting one. The short answer is "I don't know", but I think it would be hard to erase all traces without something a good bit more severe than the erosion that produced the Great Unconformity.

[mannykannot]

This brings us to a question I wanted to ask: Given that a lot of rock is missing from this period, how likely is it that the abruptness of the Cambrian explosion is an artifact of missing evidence? How likely is it that we would even recognize a distinct Cambrian period, if four-fifths of the Cambrian rocks were missing?

[User23]

I’m under the impression that we’re still in the quaternary ice age. What makes a snowball impossible now? The division of the ocean in two that restricts convection and the large polar continent that provides a convenient place for ice sheets to increase the Earth’s albedo both suggest, to my admittedly limited understanding, that a severe glaciation isn’t out of the cards. I ask not to challenge but to learn.

Edit: I can’t remember the name right now, but there are also a bunch of solar cycles that affected past glaciations. I’d be grateful for information on that too.

[cbkeller]

We are still in an icehouse period, yes! However, a few things may make it a bit harder for that to develop into a full snowball, currently:

1) While having continents at the poles makes it easier to have icesheets at all, it also makes it harder for them to grow into a full snowball. This is because

a) covering the continents with ice shuts down silicate weathering (and silicate weathering consumes CO2, so that's a stabilizing negative feedback)

b) the difference in albedo between water and sea ice is greater than the difference in albedo between land and ice. So if you can get cold enough to start making sea ice at the poles, you should get a stronger positive feedback of cooling -> higher albedo -> more cooling

During the Neoproterozoic, most or all of the continents seem to have been near the equator, so silicate weathering could keep going until sea ice reached the "point of no return" of the sea ice-albedo feedback [e.g. 1]

2) The biosphere is pretty different today than it was last time we had a snowball, and there is some reason to think that evolutionary developments like land plants and pelagic calcifiers may make the climate system more stable than it was 700 million years ago.

None of that is to say it's impossible though! The solid earth acts slowly, but it's a big lever, so hypothetically if you could somehow crank silicate weathering up high enough and volcanic degassing down low enough, you could probably still in principle reach the tipping point again.

For your last question, you are probably thinking of Milankovitch cycles [2] -- those are definitely going strong as well, though generally not strong enough to get us into or out of a snowball state.

[1] https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-2079-2012

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

[User23]

Thank you for all the great information. And yes it was Milankovitch cycles I was thinking of. I really appreciate your taking the time to educate me.

[vba616]

>a few things may make it a bit harder for that to develop into a full snowball

Are you making a point by leaving human emissions of CO2 out of your list?

[cbkeller]

That certainly doesn't help either! To some extent though, anthropogenic emissions are dangerous more for their rate than their absolute magnitude; in the long run, once we stop emitting, silicate weathering will take back over "soon enough" -- it's just that "soon enough" in this case means ~5 myr and probably a mass extinction later.

The other one I forgot to mention is that the sun is a bit brighter now than it was 700 Myr ago (by perhaps a few percent). Go back another two or three billion years to the Archean and the difference would have been bigger -- to the point that we have some trouble explaining why there weren't a lot more snowballs back then [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox

[_0w8t]

Is it possible from geological evidence to confirm that Sun was dimmer billions years ago? I am asking as stability of Earth orbit cannot be taken for granted for such periods. For example, we could underestimate the effects of solar wind in past that could have pushed Earth, or the could be an interaction with passing close stars.

[User23]

I have to say I was thinking to myself this person identified as a geologist, so an event that started 200 years ago probably isn’t a major concern. In the sense of geologic timescales I mean.

[morphle]

Most of what you ask is discussed and explained in the 8 episodes of Earth Story documentary [1] and the other links of my comments here.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFcKEcyWhGQ