Photo: Ancient "Snowball Earth" Melted Fast Due to Methane



Glaciers cover the mountains around the Chumpe Pass in Peru in an undated photo.

About 635 million years ago Earth was covered in ice sheets that stretched to the Equator. A new study suggests that a huge release of methane triggered sudden and rapid climate warming that melted the last "snowball Earth" event.

Photograph by Carsten Peter/NGS


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