The planet was different 700 million years ago. In the Cryogenian period, Earth featured a single supercontinent known as Rodinia, complex organisms had yet to explode on to the scene, and the globe was an ice-covered snowball.
But at some point during “Snowball Earth,” rock as much as 3 miles deep was carved away by geological forces. The result is up to a billion years of missing geological time known as the “Great Unconformity.”
“The fact that so many places are missing the sedimentary rocks from this time period has been one of the most puzzling features of the rock record,” says C. Brenhin Keller, assistant professor of earth sciences.
For years, researchers have debated the cause of the massive erosion of rock. Some believe that the phenomenon was the result of ice age glacial activity, while others point to plate tectonics from the assembly and breakup of the Rodinia supercontinent.
Read more at Dartmouth College
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