National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

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


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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