BIO 1130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Snowball Earth, Global Cooling

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIO 1130
• Professor: Jon Houseman

Document Summary

Phanerozoic eon paleozoic: explanation for the cambrian. There was a period of time where all of the continental land masses were exposed to the equator. Raw rock -> no life on it: not good at absorbing heat, therefore the ocean absorbs the heat, and there is a global cooling. Precipitation occurs on the rock, and there is erosion which causes the oceans to be filled with minerals. More cations in the oceans, therefore the co2 in the air is being removed and put into the oceans which gets rid of the greenhouse gases. The oxygen reacts with the methane in the air (important greenhouse gas) and turns it into co2. The loss of the greenhouse gases means less insulation for the heat of the earth. Another theory called slush ball earth which is pretty much the same except there is a patch of semi-frozen water along the equator.