{"id":2926,"date":"2024-08-16T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T01:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/16\/scotland-and-ireland-rock-formation-dating-back-hundreds-of-millions-of-years-shows-historic-global-freeze-study-says\/"},"modified":"2024-08-16T01:00:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T01:00:55","slug":"scotland-and-ireland-rock-formation-dating-back-hundreds-of-millions-of-years-shows-historic-global-freeze-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/16\/scotland-and-ireland-rock-formation-dating-back-hundreds-of-millions-of-years-shows-historic-global-freeze-study-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland and Ireland rock formation dating back \u2018hundreds of millions of years\u2019 shows historic global freeze, study says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Scottish and Irish rock formation dating back hundreds of millions of years could be evidence of what scientists call snowball Earth, a new study says.<\/p>\n<p>The snowball Earth theory proposes that the planet\u2019s oceans and land were covered by ice during at least two extreme cooling events between 2.4 billion and 580 million years ago.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-site-outbrain sdc-site-outbrain--AR_6\">    <\/div>\n<p>These are speculated to have sparked the development of life on Earth \u2013 and now researchers believe the Port Askaig Formation in <strong>Scotland<\/strong> and <strong>Ireland<\/strong> was likely to have been laid down between 662 and 720 million years ago, during such an extreme cooling event.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists point to a section of exposed rock on the Scottish islands called the Garvellachs, which they say shows the transition into snowball Earth from a previously warm and tropical environment.<\/p>\n<p>Elias Rugen, study co-author and a PhD candidate at UCL Earth Sciences, said their research on the rock formation marks \u201cthe first conclusive age constraints for these Scottish and Irish rocks, confirming their global significance\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--teads\">        <\/div>\n<p>He explained most areas of the world are missing the layers in the rocks which record a tropical environment and mark the transition, because the ancient glaciers scraped and eroded away the rocks underneath.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut in Scotland by some miracle the transition can be seen,\u201d Mr Rugen said.<\/p>\n<p>For the new study, the research team analysed samples of sandstone from Port Askaig Formation as well as from the older, 70m-thick Garbh Eileach Formation underneath.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers said the new age constraints for the rocks may provide the evidence needed for the site to be declared as a marker for the start of the Cryogenian Period \u2013 which scientists believe was when the development of complex life on Earth started.<\/p>\n<p>Senior author Professor Graham Shields, of University College London (UCL) Earth Sciences, said: \u201cThese rocks record a time when Earth was covered in ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll complex, multicellular life, such as animals, arose out of this deep freeze, with the first evidence in the fossil record appearing shortly after the planet thawed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study was published in the Journal of the Geological Society of London.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Scottish and Irish rock formation dating back hundreds of millions of years could be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}