title: Snowball Earth

text: Further, sedimentary features that could only form in open water (for example: wave-formed ripples, far-traveled ice-rafted debris and indicators of photosynthetic activity) can be found throughout sediments dating from the snowball-Earth periods. While these may represent "oases" of meltwater on a completely frozen Earth, computer modelling suggests that large areas of the ocean must have remained ice-free; arguing that a "hard" snowball is not plausible in terms of energy balance and general circulation models.


title: Snowball Earth

text: There are two stable isotopes of carbon in sea water: carbon-12 (C) and the rare carbon-13 (C), which makes up about 1.109 percent of carbon atoms.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Biochemical processes, of which photosynthesis is one, tend to preferentially incorporate the lighter C isotope. Thus ocean-dwelling photosynthesizers, both protists and algae, tend to be very slightly depleted in C, relative to the abundance found in the primary volcanic sources of Earth's carbon. Therefore, an ocean with photosynthetic life will have a lower C/C ratio within organic remains, and a higher ratio in corresponding ocean water. The organic component of the lithified sediments will remain very slightly, but measurably, depleted in C.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Silicate weathering, an inorganic process by which carbon dioxide is drawn out of the atmosphere and deposited in rock, also fractionates carbon. The emplacement of several large igneous provinces shortly before the Cryogenian and the subsequent chemical weathering of the enormous continental flood basalts created by them, aided by the breakup of Rodinia that exposed many of these flood basalts to warmer, moister conditions closer to the coast and accelerated chemical weathering, is also believed to have caused a major positive shift in carbon isotopic ratios and contributed to the beginning of the Sturtian glaciation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: During the proposed episode of snowball Earth, there are rapid and extreme negative excursions in the ratio of C to C. Close analysis of the timing of C 'spikes' in deposits across the globe allows the recognition of four, possibly five, glacial events in the late Neoproterozoic.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Banded iron formations (BIF) are sedimentary rocks of layered iron oxide and iron-poor chert. In the presence of oxygen, iron naturally rusts and becomes insoluble in water. The banded iron formations are commonly very old and their deposition is often related to the oxidation of Earth's atmosphere during the Palaeoproterozoic era, when dissolved iron in the ocean came in contact with photosynthetically produced oxygen and precipitated out as iron oxide.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The bands were produced at the tipping point between an anoxic and an oxygenated ocean. Since today's atmosphere is oxygen-rich (nearly 21% by volume) and in contact with the oceans, it is not possible to accumulate enough iron oxide to deposit a banded formation. The only extensive iron formations that were deposited after the Palaeoproterozoic (after 1.8 billion years ago) are associated with Cryogenian glacial deposits.


title: Snowball Earth

text: For such iron-rich rocks to be deposited there would have to be anoxia in the ocean, so that much dissolved iron (as ferrous oxide) could accumulate before it met an oxidant that would precipitate it as ferric oxide. For the ocean to become anoxic it must have limited gas exchange with the oxygenated atmosphere. Proponents of the hypothesis argue that the reappearance of BIF in the sedimentary record is a result of limited oxygen levels in an ocean sealed by sea-ice, while opponents suggest that the rarity of the BIF deposits may indicate that they formed in inland seas.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Being isolated from the oceans, such lakes could have been stagnant and anoxic at depth, much like today's Black Sea; a sufficient input of iron could provide the necessary conditions for BIF formation. A further difficulty in suggesting that BIFs marked the end of the glaciation is that they are found interbedded with glacial sediments. BIFs are also strikingly absent during the Marinoan glaciation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Around the top of Neoproterozoic glacial deposits there is commonly a sharp transition into a chemically precipitated sedimentary limestone or dolomite metres to tens of metres thick. These cap carbonates sometimes occur in sedimentary successions that have no other carbonate rocks, suggesting that their deposition is result of a profound aberration in ocean chemistry.


title: Snowball Earth

text: These cap carbonates have unusual chemical composition, as well as strange sedimentary structures that are often interpreted as large ripples.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The formation of such sedimentary rocks could be caused by a large influx of positively charged ions, as would be produced by rapid weathering during the extreme greenhouse following a snowball Earth event. The isotopic signature of the cap carbonates is near −5 ‰, consistent with the value of the mantle—such a low value is usually/could be taken to signify an absence of life, since photosynthesis usually acts to raise the value; alternatively the release of methane deposits could have lowered it from a higher value, and counterbalance the effects of photosynthesis.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The precise mechanism involved in the formation of cap carbonates is not clear, but the most cited explanation suggests that at the melting of a snowball Earth, water would dissolve the abundant from the atmosphere to form carbonic acid, which would fall as acid rain. This would weather exposed silicate and carbonate rock (including readily attacked glacial debris), releasing large amounts of calcium, which when washed into the ocean would form distinctively textured layers of carbonate sedimentary rock. Such an abiotic "cap carbonate" sediment can be found on top of the glacial till that gave rise to the snowball Earth hypothesis.


title: Snowball Earth

text: However, there are some problems with the designation of a glacial origin to cap carbonates. Firstly, the high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would cause the oceans to become acidic, and dissolve any carbonates contained within—starkly at odds with the deposition of cap carbonates. Further, the thickness of some cap carbonates is far above what could reasonably be produced in the relatively quick deglaciations. The cause is further weakened by the lack of cap carbonates above many sequences of clear glacial origin at a similar time and the occurrence of similar carbonates within the sequences of proposed glacial origin. An alternative mechanism, which may have produced the Doushantuo cap carbonate at least, is the rapid, widespread release of methane. This accounts for incredibly low—as low as −48 ‰— values—as well as unusual sedimentary features which appear to have been formed by the flow of gas through the sediments.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Isotopes of the element boron suggest that the pH of the oceans dropped dramatically before and after the Marinoan glaciation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: This may indicate a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, some of which would dissolve into the oceans to form carbonic acid. Although the boron variations may be evidence of extreme climate change, they need not imply a global glaciation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Earth's surface is very depleted in the element iridium, which primarily resides in Earth's core. The only significant source of the element at the surface is cosmic particles that reach Earth. During a snowball Earth, iridium would accumulate on the ice sheets, and when the ice melted the resulting layer of sediment would be rich in iridium. An iridium anomaly has been discovered at the base of the cap carbonate formations, and has been used to suggest that the glacial episode lasted for at least 3 million years, but this does not necessarily imply a "global" extent to the glaciation; indeed, a similar anomaly could be explained by the impact of a large meteorite.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Using the ratio of mobile cations to those that remain in soils during chemical weathering (the chemical index of alteration), it has been shown that chemical weathering varied in a cyclic fashion within a glacial succession, increasing during interglacial periods and decreasing during cold and arid glacial periods. This pattern, if a true reflection of events, suggests that the "snowball Earths" bore a stronger resemblance to Pleistocene ice age cycles than to a completely frozen Earth.


title: Snowball Earth

text: In addition, glacial sediments of the Port Askaig Tillite Formation in Scotland clearly show interbedded cycles of glacial and shallow marine sediments. The significance of these deposits is highly reliant upon their dating. Glacial sediments are difficult to date, and the closest dated bed to the Portaskaig group is 8 km stratigraphically above the beds of interest. Its dating to 600 Ma means the beds can be tentatively correlated to the Sturtian glaciation, but they may represent the advance or retreat of a snowball Earth.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The initiation of a snowball Earth event would involve some initial cooling mechanism, which would result in an increase in Earth's coverage of snow and ice. The increase in Earth's coverage of snow and ice would in turn increase Earth's albedo, which would result in positive feedback for cooling. If enough snow and ice accumulates, run-away cooling would result. This positive feedback is facilitated by an equatorial continental distribution, which would allow ice to accumulate in the regions closer to the equator, where solar radiation is most direct.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Many possible triggering mechanisms could account for the beginning of a snowball Earth, such as the eruption of a supervolcano, a reduction in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases such as methane and/or carbon dioxide, changes in Solar energy output, or perturbations of Earth's orbit. Regardless of the trigger, initial cooling results in an increase in the area of Earth's surface covered by ice and snow, and the additional ice and snow reflects more Solar energy back to space, further cooling Earth and further increasing the area of Earth's surface covered by ice and snow. This positive feedback loop could eventually produce a frozen equator as cold as modern Antarctica.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Global warming associated with large accumulations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over millions of years, emitted primarily by volcanic activity, is the proposed trigger for melting a snowball Earth. Due to positive feedback for melting, the eventual melting of the snow and ice covering most of Earth's surface would require as little as a millennium.


title: Snowball Earth

text: A tropical distribution of the continents is, perhaps counter-intuitively, necessary to allow the initiation of a snowball Earth.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Firstly, tropical continents are more reflective than open ocean, and so absorb less of the Sun's heat: most absorption of Solar energy on Earth today occurs in tropical oceans.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Further, tropical continents are subject to more rainfall, which leads to increased river discharge—and erosion.


title: Snowball Earth

text: When exposed to air, silicate rocks undergo weathering reactions which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These reactions proceed in the general form: Rock-forming mineral + CO + HO → cations + bicarbonate + SiO. An example of such a reaction is the weathering of wollastonite:


title: Snowball Earth

text: The released calcium cations react with the dissolved bicarbonate in the ocean to form calcium carbonate as a chemically precipitated sedimentary rock. This transfers carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air into the geosphere, and, in steady-state on geologic time scales, offsets the carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes into the atmosphere.


title: Snowball Earth

text: As of 2003, a precise continental distribution during the Neoproterozoic was difficult to establish because there were too few suitable sediments for analysis. Some reconstructions point towards polar continents—which have been a feature of all other major glaciations, providing a point upon which ice can nucleate. Changes in ocean circulation patterns may then have provided the trigger of snowball Earth.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Additional factors that may have contributed to the onset of the Neoproterozoic snowball include the introduction of atmospheric free oxygen, which may have reached sufficient quantities to react with methane in the atmosphere, oxidizing it to carbon dioxide, a much weaker greenhouse gas, and a younger—thus fainter—Sun, which would have emitted 6 percent less radiation in the Neoproterozoic.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Normally, as Earth gets colder due to natural climatic fluctuations and changes in incoming solar radiation, the cooling slows these weathering reactions. As a result, less carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and Earth warms as this greenhouse gas accumulates—this 'negative feedback' process limits the magnitude of cooling. During the Cryogenian period, however, Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes, which made this moderating process less effective, as high weathering rates continued on land even as Earth cooled. This let ice advance beyond the polar regions. Once ice advanced to within 30° of the equator, a positive feedback could ensue such that the increased reflectiveness (albedo) of the ice led to further cooling and the formation of more ice, until the whole Earth is ice-covered.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Polar continents, due to low rates of evaporation, are too dry to allow substantial carbon deposition—restricting the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide that can be removed from the carbon cycle. A gradual rise of the proportion of the isotope carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 in sediments pre-dating "global" glaciation indicates that draw-down before snowball Earths was a slow and continuous process.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The start of snowball Earths are always marked by a sharp downturn in the δC value of sediments, a hallmark that may be attributed to a crash in biological productivity as a result of the cold temperatures and ice-covered oceans.


title: Snowball Earth

text: In January 2016, Gernon et al. proposed a "shallow-ridge hypothesis" involving the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, linking the eruption and rapid alteration of hyaloclastites along shallow ridges to massive increases in alkalinity in an ocean with thick ice cover. Gernon et al. demonstrated that the increase in alkalinity over the course of glaciation is sufficient to explain the thickness of cap carbonates formed in the aftermath of Snowball Earth events.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Global temperature fell so low that the equator was as cold as modern-day Antarctica. This low temperature was maintained by the high albedo of the ice sheets, which reflected most incoming solar energy into space. A lack of heat-retaining clouds, caused by water vapor freezing out of the atmosphere, amplified this effect.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The carbon dioxide levels necessary to thaw Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about 13% of the atmosphere. Since Earth was almost completely covered with ice, carbon dioxide could not be withdrawn from the atmosphere by release of alkaline metal ions weathering out of siliceous rocks. Over 4 to 30 million years, enough and methane, mainly emitted by volcanoes but also produced by microbes converting organic carbon trapped under the ice into the gas, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of permanently ice-free land and water developed; this would be darker than the ice, and thus absorb more energy from the Sun—initiating a "positive feedback".


title: Snowball Earth

text: Destabilization of substantial deposits of methane hydrates locked up in low-latitude permafrost may also have acted as a trigger and/or strong positive feedback for deglaciation and warming.


title: Snowball Earth

text: On the continents, the melting of glaciers would release massive amounts of glacial deposit, which would erode and weather. The resulting sediments supplied to the ocean would be high in nutrients such as phosphorus, which combined with the abundance of would trigger a cyanobacteria population explosion, which would cause a relatively rapid reoxygenation of the atmosphere, which may have contributed to the rise of the Ediacaran biota and the subsequent Cambrian explosion—a higher oxygen concentration allowing large multicellular lifeforms to develop. Although the positive feedback loop would melt the ice in geological short order, perhaps less than 1,000 years, replenishment of atmospheric oxygen and depletion of the levels would take further millennia.


title: Snowball Earth

text: It is possible that carbon dioxide levels fell enough for Earth to freeze again; this cycle may have repeated until the continents had drifted to more polar latitudes.


title: Snowball Earth

text: More recent evidence suggests that with colder oceanic temperatures, the resulting higher ability of the oceans to dissolve gases led to the carbon content of sea water being more quickly oxidized to carbon dioxide. This leads directly to an increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, enhanced greenhouse warming of Earth's surface, and the prevention of a total snowball state.


title: Snowball Earth

text: During millions of years, cryoconite would have accumulated on and inside the ice. Psychrophilic microorganisms, volcanic ash and dust from ice-free locations would settle on ice covering several million square kilometers. Once the ice started to melt, these layers would become visible and color the icy surfaces dark, helping to accelerate the process.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Also, ultraviolet light from the Sun produced hydrogen peroxide (HO) when it hit water molecules. Normally HO breaks down in sunlight, but some would have been trapped inside the ice. When the glaciers started to melt, it would have been released in both the ocean and the atmosphere, where it was split into water and oxygen molecules, increasing atmospheric oxygen.


title: Snowball Earth

text: While the presence of glaciers is not disputed, the idea that the entire planet was covered in ice is more contentious, leading some scientists to posit a "slushball Earth", in which a band of ice-free, or ice-thin, waters remains around the equator, allowing for a continued hydrologic cycle.


title: Snowball Earth

text: This hypothesis appeals to scientists who observe certain features of the sedimentary record that can only be formed under open water, or rapidly moving ice (which would require somewhere ice-free to move to). Recent research observed geochemical cyclicity in clastic rocks, showing that the "snowball" periods were punctuated by warm spells, similar to ice age cycles in recent Earth history. Attempts to construct computer models of a snowball Earth have also struggled to accommodate global ice cover without fundamental changes in the laws and constants which govern the planet.


title: Snowball Earth

text: A less extreme snowball Earth hypothesis involves continually evolving continental configurations and changes in ocean circulation. Synthesised evidence has produced models indicating a "slushball Earth", where the stratigraphic record does not permit postulating complete global glaciations. Kirschivink's original hypothesis had recognised that warm tropical puddles would be expected to exist in a snowball Earth.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The snowball Earth hypothesis does not explain the alternation of glacial and interglacial events, nor the oscillation of glacial sheet margins.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The argument against the hypothesis is evidence of fluctuation in ice cover and melting during "snowball Earth" deposits. Evidence for such melting comes from evidence of glacial dropstones, geochemical evidence of climate cyclicity, and interbedded glacial and shallow marine sediments. A longer record from Oman, constrained to 13°N, covers the period from 712 to 545 million years ago—a time span containing the Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations—and shows both glacial and ice-free deposition.


title: Snowball Earth

text: There have been difficulties in recreating a snowball Earth with global climate models. Simple GCMs with mixed-layer oceans can be made to freeze to the equator; a more sophisticated model with a full dynamic ocean (though only a primitive sea ice model) failed to form sea ice to the equator. In addition, the levels of necessary to melt a global ice cover have been calculated to be 130,000 ppm, which is considered by some to be unreasonably large.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Strontium isotopic data have been found to be at odds with proposed snowball Earth models of silicate weathering shutdown during glaciation and rapid rates immediately post-glaciation. Therefore, methane release from permafrost during marine transgression was proposed to be the source of the large measured carbon excursion in the time immediately after glaciation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Nick Eyles suggests that the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth was in fact no different from any other glaciation in Earth's history, and that efforts to find a single cause are likely to end in failure. The "Zipper rift" hypothesis proposes two pulses of continental "unzipping"—first, the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, forming the proto-Pacific Ocean; then the splitting of the continent Baltica from Laurentia, forming the proto-Atlantic—coincided with the glaciated periods.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The associated tectonic uplift would form high plateaus, just as the East African Rift is responsible for high topography; this high ground could then host glaciers.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Banded iron formations have been taken as unavoidable evidence for global ice cover, since they require dissolved iron ions and anoxic waters to form; however, the limited extent of the Neoproterozoic banded iron deposits means that they may not have formed in frozen oceans, but instead in inland seas. Such seas can experience a wide range of chemistries; high rates of evaporation could concentrate iron ions, and a periodic lack of circulation could allow anoxic bottom water to form.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Continental rifting, with associated subsidence, tends to produce such landlocked water bodies. This rifting, and associated subsidence, would produce the space for the fast deposition of sediments, negating the need for an immense and rapid melting to raise the global sea levels.


title: Snowball Earth

text: A competing hypothesis to explain the presence of ice on the equatorial continents was that Earth's axial tilt was quite high, in the vicinity of 60°, which would place Earth's land in high "latitudes", although supporting evidence is scarce. A less extreme possibility would be that it was merely Earth's magnetic pole that wandered to this inclination, as the magnetic readings which suggested ice-filled continents depend on the magnetic and rotational poles being relatively similar. In either of these two situations, the freeze would be limited to relatively small areas, as is the case today; severe changes to Earth's climate are not necessary.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The evidence for low-latitude glacial deposits during the supposed snowball Earth episodes has been reinterpreted via the concept of inertial interchange true polar wander (IITPW).


title: Snowball Earth

text: This hypothesis, created to explain palaeomagnetic data, suggests that Earth's orientation relative to its axis of rotation shifted one or more times during the general time-frame attributed to snowball Earth. This could feasibly produce the same distribution of glacial deposits without requiring any of them to have been deposited at equatorial latitude. While the physics behind the proposition is sound, the removal of one flawed data point from the original study rendered the application of the concept in these circumstances unwarranted.


title: Snowball Earth

text: A tremendous glaciation would curtail photosynthetic life on Earth, thus depleting atmospheric oxygen, and thereby allowing non-oxidized iron-rich rocks to form.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Detractors argue that this kind of glaciation would have made life extinct entirely. However, microfossils such as stromatolites and oncolites prove that, in shallow marine environments at least, life did not suffer any perturbation. Instead life developed a trophic complexity and survived the cold period unscathed. Proponents counter that it may have been possible for life to survive in these ways:


title: Snowball Earth

text: However, organisms and ecosystems, as far as it can be determined by the fossil record, do not appear to have undergone the significant change that would be expected by a mass extinction. With the advent of more precise dating, a phytoplankton extinction event which had been associated with snowball Earth was shown to precede glaciations by 16 million years. Even if life were to cling on in all the ecological refuges listed above, a whole-Earth glaciation would result in a biota with a noticeably different diversity and composition. This change in diversity and composition has not yet been observed—in fact, the organisms which should be most susceptible to climatic variation emerge unscathed from the snowball Earth. One rebuttal to this is the fact that in many of these places where an argument is made against a mass extinction caused by snowball Earth, the Cryogenian fossil record is extraordinarily impoverished.


title: Snowball Earth

text: A snowball Earth has profound implications in the history of life on Earth. While many refugia have been postulated, global ice cover would certainly have ravaged ecosystems dependent on sunlight. Geochemical evidence from rocks associated with low-latitude glacial deposits have been interpreted to show a crash in oceanic life during the glacials.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Because about half of the oceans' water was frozen solid as ice, the remaining water would be twice as salty as it is today, lowering its freezing point. When the ice sheet melted under a hot atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, it would cover the oceans with a layer of warm (50°C) freshwater up to 2 kilometres thick. Only after the warm surface water mixed with the colder and deeper saltwater did the sea return to a warmer and less salty state.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The melting of the ice may have presented many new opportunities for diversification, and may indeed have driven the rapid evolution which took place at the end of the Cryogenian period.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The Neoproterozoic was a time of remarkable diversification of multicellular organisms, including animals. Organism size and complexity increased considerably after the end of the snowball glaciations. This development of multicellular organisms may have been the result of increased evolutionary pressures resulting from multiple icehouse-hothouse cycles; in this sense, snowball Earth episodes may have "pumped" evolution. Alternatively, fluctuating nutrient levels and rising oxygen may have played a part. Another major glacial episode may have ended just a few million years before the Cambrian explosion.


title: Snowball Earth

text: One hypothesis which has been gaining currency in recent years: that early snowball Earths did not so much "affect" the evolution of life on Earth as result from it. In fact the two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. The idea is that Earth's life forms affect the global carbon cycle and so major evolutionary events alter the carbon cycle, redistributing carbon within various reservoirs within the biosphere system and in the process temporarily lowering the atmospheric (greenhouse) carbon reservoir until the revised biosphere system settled into a new state. The cool period of the Huronian glaciation is speculated to be linked to the decline of greenhouse gases during the Great Oxidation Event. Similarly, the possible snowball Earth of the Precambrian's Cryogenian between 580 and 850 million years ago (and which itself had a number of distinct episodes) could be related to the rise of more advanced multicellular animal life and life's colonization of the land. However, a very recent study, based on findings of previous studies, suggested land plant evolution was driven by the Cryogenian glaciations, which they also theorized to be the reason why the Zygnematophyceae (sister group of land plants) became unicellular and cryophilic, lost their flagella and evolved sexual conjugation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Global ice cover, if it existed, may—in concert with geothermal heating—have led to a lively, well mixed ocean with great vertical convective circulation.


title: Snowball Earth

text: There were three or four significant ice ages during the late Neoproterozoic. Of these, the Marinoan was the most significant, and the Sturtian glaciations were also truly widespread. Even the leading snowball proponent Hoffman agrees that the 350 thousand-year-long Gaskiers glaciation did not lead to global glaciation, although it was probably as intense as the late Ordovician glaciation. The status of the Kaigas "glaciation" or "cooling event" is currently unclear; some scientists do not recognise it as a glacial, others suspect that it may reflect poorly dated strata of Sturtian association, and others believe it may indeed be a third ice age. It was certainly less significant than the Sturtian or Marinoan glaciations, and probably not global in extent. Emerging evidence suggests that Earth underwent a number of glaciations during the Neoproterozoic, which would stand strongly at odds with the snowball hypothesis.


title: Snowball Earth

text: The snowball Earth hypothesis has been invoked to explain glacial deposits in the Huronian Supergroup of Canada, though the palaeomagnetic evidence that suggests ice sheets at low latitudes is contested, and stratigraphic evidence clearly shows only three distinct depositions of glacial material (the Ramsay, Bruce, and Gowganda Formations) separated by significant periods without. The glacial sediments of the Makganyene formation of South Africa are slightly younger than the Huronian glacial deposits (~2.25 billion years old) and were possibly deposited at tropical latitudes. It has been proposed that rise of free oxygen that occurred during the Great Oxygenation Event removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation. As the Sun was notably weaker at the time, Earth's climate may have relied on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to maintain surface temperatures above freezing. In the absence of this methane greenhouse, temperatures plunged and a snowball event could have occurred.


title: Snowball Earth

text: Before the theory of continental drift, glacial deposits in Carboniferous strata in tropical continental areas such as India and South America led to speculation that the Karoo Ice Age glaciation reached into the tropics. However, a continental reconstruction shows that ice was in fact constrained to the polar parts of the supercontinent Gondwana.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Karthikeyan hails from Tiruvarur district. He is a trained Carnatic music vocalist. He was part of a college band and regularly participated in IIT Madras Fest "Saarang". An ardent fan of A. R. Rahman, Karthik's dream was to meet Rahman and sing for him. Playback singer Srinivas, who collaborated often with Rahman was Karthik's close friend's cousin. Srinivas encouraged Karthik to look at singing as a career, which prompted Karthik to resume his singing lessons. One year later, Srinivas recommended Karthik's name to Rahman, who needed fresh voices for backing vocalists for a song from "Pukar". Karthik eventually got the opportunity and recorded for the song. Having spent over a year being a backing vocalist, Karthik got his break during the Rahman's scoring of "One 2 Ka 4". For the background score, A. R. Rahman wanted a high-pitched alap and he eventually chose Karthik to sing the alap. Soon after, Rahman asked him to sing the song "Nendhukittaen" from the film "Star".


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Karthik was a CA aspirant before he became a professional singer. He is married to Ambika, they have a daughter and a son.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Karthik has sung a number of songs for many popular music directors, including A. R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraaja, Hamsalekha, Vidyasagar, Devi Sri Prasad, Harris Jayaraj and Manisharma, in several languages – Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. "Ennaku Oru Girlfriend" from the Tamil film "Boys" was one of the biggest hits of the year as was "Oru Maalai" ("Ghajini"; 2005). His songs for Telugu films for "Kotha Bangaru Lokam" (Nijanga Nenenaa), "Happy Days" (Arare Arare, Oh My Friend), "Badhulu Tochanai" ("Mr.Perfect"), "Manase Guvvai" ("Naa Peru Shiva"), "Oh Oh My Friend" ("Oh My Friend"), "Yedhuta nlichindhi choodu" ("Vaana"), "Meghama" ("Journey"), "Yevvaro" ("Bodyguard") are very popular. His other popular songs include "Ava Enna" from the "Vaaranam Aayiram" (2009), the title track from "Unnale Unnale", "Behka" from "Ghajini".


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Karthik has sung Kannada songs and has many super hit chart buster songs to his credit like Ale Ale, Anuraaga Aralo Samaya, Thangaliyalli Theli Hode, Nee Chummu Chummu Munjaaneli, Manasaithu Ninna Myaale, Sum Sumne Yaako, Hosadondu hesaridu Nanange, Kanne Koodiruvaaga, Madhumasa, Nenapidu Nenapidu, Thanthaane Thannamthaane, Baruve Odi Odi Nalidu, Raktha Sambandhagala, Saluge Saluge, Mannige Mara Bhaarave and many more.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: In 2010, he sang a track "Behene De", from Hindi film "Raavan", which is widely considered as the biggest song in his career. The track, which topped music charts for many continuous weeks, also received rave critical reviews. Karthik also performed the Tamil and Telugu versions of the same song, titled "Usure Poghudhey" and "Usire Poyene" respectively. He also sang "Adhigora Choodu" in the movie Mirapakaay.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: The song Yayum Ngayum from the album is considered as one of Karthik's career best for the way how he has brought sensuality to the 2000 year old poetry. He received wide appreciations for the theme song of 10th World Tamil Conference from the same album . The album was featured in Amazon's Top#10 International Music albums in July 2020.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: He has composed music for a multi lingual Coca-Cola Advertisement (for Rajeev Menon featuring actor Vijay) and Prince Jewellery advertisements. He is the music director of Vasanthabalan's period film "Aravaan" and Srinivas Raga's "Okkadine" starring "Nara Rohit" and "Nithya Menen" in Telugu.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: He has also released an album called "Music I Like". It is based on carnatic ragaas and it is a contemporary take on some well known keerthanas. The orchestration was done by the music director Sai Madhukar.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: He is the composer of the segment 'Guitar Kambi mele Nindru' directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon in the Netflix anthology movie Navarasa (2021). He has also composed music for an upcoming film "Joshua Imai Pol Kaakha".


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Arka denotes the Sun in Sanskrit and to rightly interpret the meaning, it is the warmth and radiance of music that spreads across everyone listening. With the exclusive intention of extending a new musical outreach, few renowned artists in unison have created this band and intend to broaden the horizons of Indian fusion music.


title: Karthik (singer)

text: Arka is the epicenter of an erupting musical form with core and artists like Karthik, SelvaGanesh, Gino Banks, Ravichandra Kulur, Santhosh Chandran, Mishko M'Ba, and guest artists like the legends Vikku Vinayakaram and Swaminathan.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: The Spencer repeating rifles and carbines were 19th-century American lever-action firearms invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer was the world's first military metallic-cartridge repeating rifle, and over 200,000 examples were manufactured in the United States by the Spencer Repeating Rifle Co. and Burnside Rifle Co. between 1860 and 1869. The Spencer repeating rifle was adopted by the Union Army, especially by the cavalry, during the American Civil War but did not replace the standard issue muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the time. Among the early users was George Armstrong Custer. The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter version designed for the cavalry.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: The Spencer is a lever-action repeating rifle designed by Christopher Spencer in 1860. It uses a falling breechblock mounted in a carrier. Firing forces are contained by the receiver at the rear of the breechblock. Actuating the loading lever causes the breechblock to fall. Once the breechblock is clear of the receiver, the carrier "rolls" downward, ejecting a spent cartridge from the chamber and collecting a fresh round from the tubular magazine in the buttstock. Closing the lever chambers the new cartridge and the breechblock then rises vertically to close the breech. The hammer of the Spencer needs to be manually cocked after each loading cycle. The Spencer was initially produced as a carbine, chambered for the .56-56 Spencer rimfire cartridge.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: The magazine of the Spencer holds seven rounds. It is filled by withdrawing the spring assembly from the butt plate. Rounds can be loaded individually; however, Erastus Blakeslee invented a cartridge box containing cylinders with seven cartridges each. These cylinders can be quickly emptied into the magazine tube.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: Unlike later cartridge designations, the .56-56 Spencer's first number referred to the diameter of the case just ahead of the rim, the second number the case diameter at the mouth; the actual bullet diameter was . Cartridges were loaded with of black powder, and were also available as .56-52, .56-50, and a wildcat .56-46, a necked down version of the original .56-56. Cartridge length was limited by the action size to about . Later calibers used a smaller diameter, lighter bullet and larger powder charge to increase power and range over the original .56-56 cartridge, which was almost as powerful as the .58 caliber rifled musket of the time but under-powered by the standards of other early cartridges such as the .50–70 and .45-70.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: When Spencer signed his new rifle up for adoption right after the Civil War broke out, the view by the Department of War Ordnance Department was that soldiers would waste ammunition by firing too rapidly with repeating rifles, and thus denied a government contract for all such weapons. (They did, however, encourage the use of breech-loading carbine, which is also single-shot like most firearms of the day, but is shorter than standard rifles and thus more suited to mounted warfare) More accurately, they feared that the Army's logistics train would be unable to provide enough ammunition for the soldiers in the field, as they already had grave difficulty bringing up enough ammunition to sustain armies of tens of thousands of men over distances of hundreds of miles. A weapon able to fire several times as fast would require a vastly expanded logistics train and place great strain on the already overburdened railroads and tens of thousands of more mules, wagons, and wagon train guard detachments. Its unit cost (several times that of a Springfield Model 1861 rifled musket) also stood in the way. However, shortly after the famous Battle of Gettysburg, Spencer was able to gain an audience with President Abraham Lincoln, who invited him to a shooting match and demonstration of the weapon on the lawn of the White House. Lincoln was deeply impressed with the weapon, and ordered Gen. James Wolfe Ripley to adopt it for production. Ripley disobeyed the order and continued to use the old single-shooters, causing him to be replaced as head of the Ordnance Department later that year.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: The Spencer repeating rifle was first adopted by the United States Navy, and later by the United States Army, and it was used during the American Civil War, where it was a popular weapon. The Confederates occasionally captured some of these weapons and ammunition, but, as they were unable to manufacture the cartridges because of their dire copper shortage, their utilization of the weapons was limited.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: Gettysburg was the first major battle of the war where Spencer rifles were used, as they had recently been issued to the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves. They were used at the Battle of Chickamauga and had become fairly widespread in the Western armies by 1864. Repeater rifles for comparison were rare in the Army of the Potomac.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: Notable early instances of use included the Battle of Hoover's Gap (where Colonel John T. Wilder's "Lightning Brigade" of mounted infantry effectively demonstrated the firepower of repeaters), and the Gettysburg Campaign, where two regiments of the Michigan Brigade (under Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer) carried them at the Battle of Hanover and at East Cavalry Field. As the war progressed, Spencers were carried by a number of Union cavalry and mounted infantry regiments and provided the Union army with a firepower advantage over their Confederate opponents. At the Battle of Nashville, 9,000 mounted infantrymen armed with the Spencer, under the command of Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson, chief of cavalry for the Military Division of the Mississippi, rode around Gen. Hood's left flank and attacked from the rear. President Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth was armed with a Spencer carbine at the time he was captured and killed.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: The Spencer showed itself to be very reliable under combat conditions, with a sustainable rate-of-fire in excess of 20 rounds per minute. Compared to standard muzzle-loaders, with a rate of fire of 2–3 rounds per minute, this represented a significant tactical advantage. However, effective tactics had yet to be developed to take advantage of the higher rate of fire. Similarly, the supply chain was not well prepared enough to transport the extra ammunition. Detractors also complained that the amount of smoke produced was such that it was hard to see the enemy, which was not surprising since even the smoke produced by muzzleloaders would quickly blind whole regiments, and even divisions as if they were standing in thick fog, especially on still days.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: One of the advantages of the Spencer was that its ammunition was waterproof and hardy, and could stand the constant jostling of long storage on the march, such as Wilson's Raid. The story goes that every round of paper and linen Sharps ammunition carried in the supply wagons was found useless after long storage in supply wagons. Spencer ammunition had no such problem owing to the new technology of metallic cartridges.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: In the late 1860s, the Spencer company was sold to the Fogerty Rifle Company and ultimately to Winchester. Many Spencer carbines were later sold as surplus to France where they were used during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: Even though the Spencer company went out of business in 1869, ammunition was manufactured in the United States into the 1920s. Later, many rifles and carbines were converted to centerfire, which could fire cartridges made from the centerfire .50-70 brass. The original archetype of rimfire ammunition can still be obtained on the specialty market.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: In 1867 Brigadier General James F. Rusling of the Quartermaster's Department recommended cavalry exclusively use the carbine against mounted Indian raiders, after completing a one-year tour of the new western territories.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: In the summer of 1870–1871 Chilean cavalry adopted the rifles, a change that substantially increased military disparity with the indigenous Mapuche who were at war with Chile. An example of this was Quilapán's warriors' attack on Chilean cavalry on January 25, 1871, when mounted Mapuche warriors were armed with spears and bolas. The Mapuches panicked as they did not expect a second round of shots, and casualties among them were high.


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: In September 1868 Major Frederick A. Forsyth led a small force of veterans, an "elite mounted attack-and-pursuit force", and came into heavy contact with a superior number of


title: Spencer repeating rifle

text: Cheyenne warriors led by Roman Nose. The battle is known as the Battle of Beecher Island. Forsyth's band was armed with Spencer repeating carbines and 150 rounds of .56-50 Spencer cartridges. Forsyth and his men were able to hold off and turn away a vastly larger force. It is claimed that this was largely due to the "rapid firepower of the seven-shot Spencer carbines."


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: A single-player mobile experience, the game reimagines the timeline of "Final Fantasy VII" and the "Compilation". It is scheduled for a worldwide release, beginning with a closed beta in summer 2023.


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: "Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis" is a mobile game with loot boxes. Planned to be released in monthly episodic installments, the game retells events from the 1997 video game "Final Fantasy VII", and all canon titles in the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" media franchise: the movie "", and the video games "", "" and "". Chapters can be freely selected from a timeline, allowing players to jump between different entries in the series. The battle system draws from the original game's Active Time Battle system. The title will be free to play but will offer loot boxes that offer random selections of weapons and costumes.


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: "Ever Crisis" forms part of the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII", a collection of media which expands the universe and narrative of "Final Fantasy VII". "Ever Crisis" is being developed by Applibot and published by series creator Square Enix. It has Shoichi Ichikawa as producer, Kazushige Nojima as scenario writer, Yoshinori Kitase as executive producer and Tetsuya Nomura acting as creative director. The "Compilation" originally only included four official titles, concluding with "Crisis Core" in 2007. Beginning with the 2020-released remake, Kitase revived the "Compilation" and put multiple spin-off projects into production including "Ever Crisis".


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: Nomura described "Ever Crisis" as an alternate remake of "Final Fantasy VII". In addition to remaking the original storylines, original scenario writer Kazushige Nojima incorporated new material including the backstory of "" and stories from the childhoods of various "Final Fantasy VII" game characters.


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: The graphics were described by Square Enix as a "nostalgic visual twist" on the super-deformed or "chibi" graphical style of "Final Fantasy VII". Nomura originally wanted the character portraits to be 3D rendered moving portraits, but technical constraints forced the team to use 2D artwork. These portraits and other character artwork were created by Lisa Fujise. Voice acting is currently under consideration, with the mobile platform's technical limitations needing to be taken into account. Nomura also noted that the games vary widely in technology, style, and mechanics, and this title will allow the games to be presented in a unified package. The music will also feature new arrangements. It will mark the Western debut of "Before Crisis", which was previously exclusive to Japan.


title: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis

text: "Ever Crisis" was first hinted at in January 2021 with trademark registrations of the title in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia. The title followed naming conventions for the "Compilation". The game was announced in February 2021 alongside the PlayStation 5 version of "Final Fantasy VII Remake", and the battle royale mobile spin-off title "Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier". It was planned for worldwide release, excluding mainland China, starting with a closed beta version in 2022; however, this was later delayed to summer 2023.


title: Expanding bullet

text: Expanding bullets, also known colloquially as dumdum bullets, are projectiles designed to expand on impact. This causes the bullet to increase in diameter, to combat over-penetration and produce a larger wound, thus dealing more damage to a living target. For this reason, they are used for hunting and by most police departments, but are generally prohibited for use in war. Two typical designs are the hollow-point bullet and the soft-point bullet.


title: Expanding bullet

text: Expanding bullets are designed to expand on impact, sometimes as much as twice the diameter. This will slow the bullet down and more of its kinetic energy will be transferred to the target, creating a larger wound channel. For this reason expanding bullets are often used in hunting because their stopping power increases the chance of a quick kill. There are a number of designs used for hunting different game and for use in weapons with different muzzle velocities. Bullets used for medium and large game need better penetration, which means bullets designed to maintain integrity and for less expansion. The velocities at which the bullets hit affect their expansion and penetration.


title: Expanding bullet

text: Expanding bullets are less likely to pass through the target, and if they do, they will exit at a lower velocity. This reduces the risk of accidental injury to bystanders. For this reason, and to maximize the stopping effect, law enforcement organizations use expanding bullets. Even then, some penetration is needed, e.g. to penetrate a windshield or heavy clothing. Such a bullet would have less possibility of penetrating body armour or heavy equipment worn on the body.


title: Expanding bullet

text: Expanding bullets were given the name Dum-dum, or dumdum, after an early British example produced in the Dum Dum Arsenal, near Calcutta, India by Captain Neville Bertie-Clay. There were several expanding bullets produced by this arsenal for the .303 British cartridge, including soft-point and hollow-point designs. These were not the first expanding bullets, however; hollow-point expanding bullets were commonly used for hunting thin-skinned game in express rifles as early as the mid-1870s. Neither was the .303 the first military round with this trait, the old .577 Snider bullet had a hollow core, leaving wounds known for being particularly nasty. The use of the term "Dum-dum" applied to expanding bullets other than the early .303 designs is considered slang by most ammunition and ballistics sources. Manufacturers have many terms to describe the particular construction of the various types of expanding bullets, though most fall into the category of soft-point or hollow-point designs. The expansion itself is sometimes called "mushrooming".


title: Expanding bullet

text: Early bullets were typically made in the form of spheres of nearly-pure lead, which is a soft metal. These would often flatten upon impact with the target, causing a wound larger than the original diameter of the ball. The adoption of rifling allowed the use of longer, heavier bullets, but these were still typically constructed of soft lead and would often double in diameter upon impact. In this case expansion was a side effect of materials, and there is no evidence that the bullets were designed to expand upon impact.


title: Expanding bullet

text: The earliest examples of bullets specifically designed to expand on impact were those fired by express rifles, which were developed in the mid-19th century. Express rifles used larger powder charges and lighter bullets than typical for the time to achieve very high velocities for black powder cartridges. One method of lightening the bullets used was to provide a deep cavity in the nose of the bullet. These were the first hollow-point bullets, and in addition to developing higher velocities, they also expanded significantly upon impact. These hollow-point bullets worked well on thin-skinned game, but tended to come apart on bigger game, resulting in insufficient penetration. One solution to this was the "cruciform expanding bullet", a solid bullet with a cross-shaped incision in the tip. This split section expanded only to the depth of the incision, making it an early form of controlled expansion bullet.


title: Expanding bullet

text: In the late 19th century, the invention of cordite and other nitrocellulose-based "smokeless" propellants permitted higher bullet-velocities than black powder, resulting in flatter trajectories and correspondingly higher hit probabilities. Attempts to limit recoil to an acceptable level led to higher-velocity rounds generally being smaller in diameter and lighter. To prevent lead fouling in the bore caused by the higher pressures and velocities, soft lead bullets were replaced by newly introduced full metal jacket bullets.


title: Expanding bullet

text: However, it soon became apparent that such hard, small-caliber rounds were less effective at wounding or killing an enemy than the older, large-caliber soft lead bullets. Within the British Indian Army, the Dum Dum Arsenal produced a solution: the jacketing was removed from the nose of the bullet, creating the first soft-point bullets. Since the Mark II jacket did not cover the base of the round, this could potentially lead to the jacketing being left in the barrel. This potential problem resulted in the rejection of the Dum Dum design and led to independent development of the Mark III, Mark IV (1897) and Mark V (1899) .303 British rounds, which were of the hollow-point design, with the jacket covering the base; while these were made in Britain, not at the Dum Dum Arsenal, the name "Dum-dum" had already become associated with expanding bullets, and continued to be used to refer to any expanding bullets. The expanding bullets expanded upon impact to a diameter significantly greater than the original .312 inch (7.92 mm) bullet diameter, producing larger diameter wounds than the full-metal-jacketed versions. The Mark IV was successful enough in its first use in the Battle of Omdurman that British soldiers issued with the standard Mark II bullets began to remove the top of the jacket, converting the Mark II bullets into improvised Dum-dum types.


title: Expanding bullet

text: In 1898, the German government lodged a protest against the use of the Mark IV bullet, claiming the wounds produced by the Mark IV were excessive and inhumane, thus violating the laws of war. The protest, however, was based on the comparison of the wounds produced by expanding and non-expanding bullets from high-velocity sporting rifles, rather than on comparison of the expanding .303 British bullets with the previous, large-bore service cartridge it replaced, the .577/450 Martini-Henry. With the energy on impact roughly the same, the wounds caused by the expanding bullet of the .303 were less severe than those caused by the larger-caliber, solid lead bullet used by the Martini-Henry.


title: Expanding bullet

text: The German protests were effective, however, resulting in the ban of the use of expanding bullets in warfare. The British replaced the hollow-point bullets with new full metal jacket bullets, and used the remaining stocks of expanding bullets for practice.


title: Expanding bullet

text: During the Hague Convention of 1899, the majority of the delegates moved to prohibit future usage of expanding bullets, which was opposed by the American and British delegations. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote that,


title: Expanding bullet

text: However, the rest of the delegates at the 1899 Hague Convention were not persuaded by Ardagh's arguments and voted 22–2 to prohibit the future use of the dumdum bullet.


title: Expanding bullet

text: The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III prohibits the use of expanding bullets in international warfare. This is often incorrectly believed to be prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, but it significantly predates those conventions, and is in fact a continuance of the Declaration of St Petersburg in 1868, which had earlier banned exploding projectiles of less than .


title: Expanding bullet

text: The text of the declaration states, "The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them". Until relatively recently, the prohibition on the use of expanding bullets was applicable only to international armed conflicts between the countries that have signed it. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross's customary international law study, customary international law now prohibits their use in any armed conflicts. This has been disputed by the United States, which maintains that the use of expanding bullets can be legal when there is a clear military necessity. The adoption of an amendment to Article 8 at the Review Conference of the Rome Statute in Kampala (2010) makes the use of expanding bullets in non-international armed conflict a war crime. One example of a war crime involving expanding ammunition is the August 1941 German killing of Soviet prisoners at Zhitomir, as a human experiment with captured Red Army materiel.


title: Expanding bullet

text: Because The Hague Convention applies only to the use of expanding bullets in war, the use of expanding rounds remains legal in other circumstances unless it is restricted or prohibited by local laws. Examples are use of expanding bullets in hunting in which it is desirable to stop the animal quickly, either to prevent loss of a game animal or to ensure a humane death of the animal, and in law enforcement or self-defence, if quickly neutralising an aggressor may be needed to prevent further loss of life or the bullet must remain inside the target to prevent collateral damage.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The LGM-118 Peacekeeper, originally known as the MX for "Missile, Experimental", was a MIRV-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced and deployed by the United States from 1985 to 2005. The missile could carry up to twelve Mark 21 reentry vehicles (although treaties limited its actual payload to 10), each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead. Initial plans called for building and deploying 100 MX ICBMs, but budgetary concerns eliminated the final procurement; only 50 entered service. Disarmament treaties signed after the Peacekeeper's development led to its withdrawal from service in 2005.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Studies on the underlying concept started in the 1960s. The idea was to allow the U.S. to absorb a sneak attack by the USSR with enough warheads surviving to attack the remaining Soviet missile silos. To do so, the missiles had to be highly accurate, be based in such a way that enough would survive a nuclear attack, carry a large number of warheads so the survivors would still inflict massive damage, and be able to rapidly re-target so they could be aimed at only those missiles the Soviets had not yet fired. Ultimately, the only problem that was never completely solved was the issue of basing; over its development through the 1970s, MX emerged as a highly accurate, rapid-firing, and quickly retargeted system.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Initial development began in 1971, with full-scale development starting in 1974. President Jimmy Carter ordered initial production in 1979 but was overturned by Congress. After considerable debate about the system, in October 1982, President Ronald Reagan announced that 50 of the newly named Peacekeepers would be put into service in existing LGM-30 Minuteman silos, a temporary measure until final basing was decided. The first flight test took place in 1983, which included the successful launch of six inert re-entry vehicles, each hitting pre-planned targets. It was the first U.S. ICBM to use a cold launch system, and it reached initial operational capability in 1986.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Meanwhile, the United States and the Soviet Union were negotiating the START II treaty, under which ICBMs were allowed to carry only a single warhead each. Because the Minuteman could carry a single warhead for far less money, the United States agreed to remove the Peacekeeper from their nuclear force in this treaty.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Despite the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the subsequent Russian withdrawal from the START II on 14 June 2002, the last Peacekeeper missile was deactivated on 19 September 2005. Their advanced W87 warheads were moved to the Minuteman III.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The private launch firm Orbital Sciences Corporation has developed the Minotaur IV, a four-stage civilian expendable launch system using old Peacekeeper components.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Deployment of the Minuteman ICBM began in 1962, during the Cold War, and proceeded rapidly. Limited accuracy with a circular error probable (CEP) of about and a small warhead of less than 1 megaton meant the system was unable to attack hardened targets like missile silos. This limited these early models to attacks on strategic targets like cities and ports, and the system had little or no capability as a counterforce weapon. The Air Force relied on its manned bombers as the primary weapon for attacking hardened targets and saw the ICBM as a survivable deterrent that would guard against an attack on its bomber fleet.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: As the Kennedy administration took power, the new Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, was given the seemingly impossible task of making the US military the most powerful in the world while at the same time reducing its expenditures. He ultimately solved this problem by greatly reducing reliance on the bomber and passing the role to the Minuteman. Over time, improvements to the Soviet missiles, real or imagined, led to US officials proposing a worrying scenario; a Soviet first strike with a limited number of warheads aimed at the Minuteman control bunkers could cripple the US ICBM fleet. At the time the Soviets were only capable of mounting a limited attack. With the limited accuracy of Soviet missiles, only an attack with a small number of missiles carrying very large warheads (multi-megaton range) was feasible. They had just enough of these to make a damaging, but not decisive, attack on the US ICBM fleet. By April 1964 the US had more ICBMs on active alert than strategic bombers, which exacerbated this concern.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The US ICBM fleet was primarily targeted against cities, and retargeting them took considerable time. In the event of a Soviet missile launch, the US faced the difficult decision of whether to fire their own missiles immediately or wait to determine the targets of the Soviet missiles. Firing early might mean striking civilian targets (countervalue) when the Soviets had only targeted military installations, something US politicians considered to be a serious problem (part of the flexible response doctrine). Conversely, waiting to fire might mean the loss of the ICBM fleet. However, as the US Navy was quick to point out, their Polaris fleet's stealth and mobility would maintain a countervalue force.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: This scenario was of deep concern to the United States Air Force. If the role of the nuclear missile was to ride out a first strike and ensure a counterstrike, then the Navy might be handed the mission outright. Looking for a new role, the Air Force began to turn their attention away from the deterrent role toward counterforce. Continued work on the Minuteman led to the Minuteman II specification, set in 1962. The new version included two key improvements. One was the new NS-17 inertial navigation system, which improved the CEP to , enough to allow it to attack hardened targets. Just as important, the guidance system allowed for the inclusion of eight pre-selected targets. This allowed the force to ride out a Soviet first strike, select the appropriate enemy targets, military or civilian, and launch. Against a limited attack, it offered the US a major strategic advantage. Of course, the Soviets could also improve their own system's CEP and turn all of their missiles into counterforce weapons as well. With the ICBM force now critical to the strategic mission, the Air Force became increasingly interested in new ways to keep the missiles safe from such an attack.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The Air Force had depended on engineering support from TRW during the early days of the development of their ICBM force. In 1960 a number of TRW and other engineers involved in the ICBM program formed The Aerospace Corporation, initially working on the Mercury spacecraft, X-20 Dynasoar and various ICBM projects. In 1964, the Air Force contracted them to consider a wide variety of survivable ICBM approaches, under the name "Golden Arrow".


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The project considered road, rail, submarine and air-launched weapons. One of these suggested an air-launched ballistic missile. The proposal called for an enormous (for the day) turboprop-powered aircraft with two-day endurance carrying up to eight missiles that would be dropped out the back, parachuted to the vertical, and then launched. As part of the same study, Aerospace also considered a missile and wheeled launcher combination that was small enough that they could be carried in existing C-141 Starlifter aircraft. During periods of heightened tensions, they would be flown to practically any airport and set up. The Soviets would have to target thousands of airports, runways and even dirt strips and long stretches of highway in order to attack the fleet.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Finally, they also considered conventional missiles in "super hard" silos, buried under the southern side of mountains. As the enemy warheads would approach at a fairly shallow angle from the north, they would strike the north side of the mountains before they could hit the silos themselves. Properly positioned, this would keep the explosions at least away from the silos; it was believed that silos able to withstand multi-megaton explosions at one mile could be built, although this was an area of some uncertainty. This system had the advantage that the basing would be immune to changes in accuracy or speed of the attack, only enormous increases in yield could overcome this physical barrier.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: They proposed 100 missiles in three bases of thirty missiles each. They expected that at least one base would be able to survive even an all-out attack. However, if such a force of approximately 30 missiles was going to be a reasonable deterrent, each missile would need to carry 20 or more warheads. To launch them, the study introduced the "ICBM-X", a massive new diameter design, well over twice the diameter of the existing LGM-30 Minuteman, and larger even than the Titan II "heavy" design at .


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Any of the "Golden Arrow" concepts would be extremely expensive, and in the era of Robert McNamara's US Department of Defense, cost was as important as any other consideration. As Alain Enthoven put it, "Our gross national product, though large, is limited. If we attempted to develop and procure a dozen or more distinct different nuclear delivery systems… we doubtless would end up squandering our resources and not doing a good job on any of them." Golden Arrow, along with many similar proposals from other firms, proceeded no further, in favor of the Minuteman II.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In 1966 and 67, the Department of Defense ran the STRAT-X study to consider many of these issues. As part of this program, they proposed a smaller version of ICBM-X with 10 to 20 warheads. Known initially as WS-120A and later as BGM-75 AICBM, the missile was small enough to fit in existing large silos, like those for the Titan II, but was otherwise similar in concept to the ICBM-X, with a circular error probable (CEP) of about , and especially the ability to be quickly re-programmed to attack any targets needed. In comparison, the Minuteman II had a selection of eight targets, any one of which could be quickly selected for attack, but otherwise selecting a target outside this pre-computed list was not something that could be done "on the fly". WS-120A's preferred basing mode was a super hardened shelter, but dispersed mobile options were also considered.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: However, like Golden Arrow before it, WS-120A's advantages found themselves being diluted by the new Minuteman III. The Minuteman III used the new NS-20 inertial navigation system (INS) with a CEP of , three warheads and an expanded collection of radar countermeasures that would ensure the warheads would survive an anti-ballistic missile attack. Although the system did not include the ability to be rapidly retargeted, this capability was under development and started deployment in 1972, before the planned 1975 introduction date of WS-120A. When it was fully deployed in 1978, the entire ICBM fleet could be entirely reprogrammed in 10 hours.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Since the late 1950s, engineers at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory had been working on a new type of inertial platform that replaced the mechanical gimbals with a sphere floating in a thin layer of fluorocarbon fluid. The so-called "flimbal" (apparently for "FLoated Measurement BAL") would offer unprecedented accuracy and would be free from "gimbal lock", a problem that caused conventional platforms to "tumble" and lose their accuracy. Like the ICBM-X, there was little development as there appeared to be no need for a platform with the sort of accuracy the flimbal provided, and the expense of developing the system would be extremely high.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In spite of a lack of official interest, during the late 1960s Kenneth Fertig managed to arrange some funding through the Air Force for the "SABRE" INS project, short for "Self-Aligning Boost and RE-entry". The name referred to the concept that the system would be so accurate and free from the effects of mechanical shocks and jarring that it would not require any other form of "fixing" in flight. This was in contrast to the stellar-inertial systems under development by the Navy and others. It would retain its accuracy even through the rough conditions during re-entry, allowing the creation of maneuvering reentry vehicles.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: During the late 1970s, the Soviet Union fielded a large number of increasingly accurate MIRVed Heavy ICBMs like the SS-18. These missiles carried as many as 10 warheads along with up to 40 penetration aids, meaning that a small number of launches could present a threat to the Air Force's ICBM fleet while retaining a large force in reserve. If the Soviet Union launched a first strike and the US did not respond immediately, the majority of their missiles and strategic bombers might be caught on the ground. A credible deterrent force would remain, but such a force might not have enough warheads left to attack "both" the remaining Soviet fleet and cities and other military targets.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In such a situation, the US would be left with two uncomfortable options. If they chose to respond in kind and attack the remaining Soviet missile fleet, there would be little to respond with if the Soviets immediately launched against US cities. The other option would require the US to be the first country to launch an attack on civilian targets, an attack that was both morally reprehensible as well as against stated policy. This worrying scenario led to the effort to develop a new ICBM with the accuracy needed to be an excellent counterforce weapon, the survivability needed to absorb a Soviet first strike, and the MIRV capabilities needed to ensure even a small number of survivors would be able to attack the remaining Soviet missile fleet. The Minuteman III simply did not have this combination of features.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Whether or not this problem actually existed is open to debate. The Minuteman had a relatively fast launch time, and early warning satellites meant that commanders would have almost instant warning of a Soviet launch, with ample time to plan a response. However, it would not be until much later in the sequence of events that land-based radars would be able to track the incoming individual warheads and determine the targets. In the case of a limited counterforce attack, it would be desirable to wait until the individual targeted silos were determined, determine which Soviet missiles had not been launched, and then launch only the targeted missiles against their unlaunched Soviet counterparts. This would require extremely tight timing.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The development of practical SLBM systems upset the nuclear equation dramatically. These weapons were essentially invulnerable when at sea, and offered a credible countervalue force, primarily against civilian targets as early models like the UGM-27 Polaris and UGM-73 Poseidon did not have the accuracy to attack Soviet silos and thus offered little counterforce capability. In some ways this helped the Air Force, as it meant they could concentrate on the counterforce scenarios, knowing that a countervalue attack would always be available from the Navy. However, improvements in SLBM accuracy might allow them to handle counterforce as well, and render the entire land-based ICBM fleet superfluous. The Air Force was not interested in handing the strategic role to the Navy. A survivable ICBM would address this issue.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In 1971, the Air Force started a requirements development process combining the ICBM-X and SABRE concepts into a single platform, "Missile, Experimental", or MX. The new missile would have enough accuracy and warhead payload that even a few survivors would be able to destroy enormous numbers of any remaining Soviet force. The specifications for MX were fixed in February 1972, the program office at the Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO) formed on 4 April, and the advanced development program started in late 1973.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: To address the survivability issue, a huge series of concepts and studies followed. In 1973, Strategic Air Command rejected mobile basing due to high costs and slow reaction times due to the need to set up the launcher. On 24 October 1974 the airmobile concept was tested by SAMSO by dropping a Minuteman I from a C-5A cargo aircraft. In November, the Secretary of Defense pushed the initial operational date back from 1983 to 1985 and opened a study on the possibility of developing a single missile for both ICBM and SLBM use.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: For MX, the Draper Laboratory developed SABRE into the "Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere" (AIRS). AIRS would have a drift rate of only 1.5 x 10 degrees per hour, allowing it to be periodically referenced to an external point, like the silo wall, and then left for extended periods of time. Over the period of the flight the drift would be so low that any inaccuracies in the platform would account for a maximum of 1% of the warhead's final accuracy–the rest would be due to issues like the timing of the firing of the rocket engines, minor differences in warhead construction, and unavoidable randomness in the atmosphere. The Air Force also contracted with Autonetics for a backup design using mechanical gimbals, the "Advanced Stable Platform" (ASP). In May 1975 the first hand-built AIRS was transferred from Draper's laboratory to Northrop for further development.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In July 1976, Congress refused to fund MX using a silo-based system on grounds of vulnerability, and the project was halted. Several new proposals were made for alternate basing arrangements, including mobile basing in railway cars that would be sent out into the nation's rail network during times of heightened threat levels, and more complex systems of deeply buried silos under mesas that would include systems to quickly dig themselves out after an attack.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Eventually, the program was reinstated on 12 June 1979 by President Carter. On 7 September 1979 he announced that 200 MX missiles would be deployed throughout eastern Nevada and western Utah. The deployment would occur in a system of multiple protective shelters linked by underground or aboveground roads, the so-called "Racetrack" proposal. Local opposition in Nevada was intense, and the concept gained a powerful enemy in the form of Senator Paul Laxalt. Initially support was high in Utah, especially in the Beaver County area; although opposition increased dramatically following a statement of disapproval by the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: When Ronald Reagan took office, Laxalt's close ties with Reagan proved useful. Reagan canceled the new shelter system in 1981, calling it "a Rube Goldberg scheme". On 2 October 1981 he proposed deploying an initial force of missiles in the approximately 60 existing Titan II silos, removing those now outdated missiles from service. The silos would be modified for much greater strength, and a number of Minuteman III silos similarly adapted over time to bring the force to a total of 100 missiles. Additionally, he suggested funding development of three additional concepts, airborne drops from cargo aircraft, an "active defense" using short-range anti-ballistic missile, or basing new silos deep underground or on the south side of mesas ("reverse-inclination basing"). The latter two quickly proved unacceptable for various reasons, while testing of the air-drop concept was pursued.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: On 22 November 1982, Reagan announced that the system would be deployed in new silos in what was then known as "Closely Spaced Basing", but later better known as "dense pack". During this speech, he made the first mention of the name Peacekeeper. The dense pack idea involved building super-hardened silos that would withstand more than of overpressure, compared to 2,000 of the existing silos, or for the upgraded versions originally proposed.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: This extra hardness can be offset by minor increases in warhead accuracy. The key to dense pack concept was to space the silos close together, about . This was far enough apart that a single warhead could not destroy more than one silo; no conceivable warhead was powerful enough to destroy the silos from the point between them, from either silo. To attack the dense pack, separate warheads would have to be aimed at each silo. When one of the attacking warheads exploded, the blast wave and dirt thrown into the air would destroy any nearby warheads.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: This "fratricide theory" was highly criticized due to the expected relative ease with which the Soviets could modify their warheads and circumvent this design. All that was required was that several warheads arrive and be detonated within a few milliseconds of each other, so the blast waves did not reach each other before completing destruction of the silo. Such timing could be easily achieved by launching all of the warheads from a single missile. Congress again rejected the system.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Reagan responded to this setback by appointing Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft to lead a Commission on Strategic Forces, better known as the Scowcroft Commission.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: In overall terms, the most important conclusion of the Scowcroft Commission was that the "window of vulnerability" in regard to the Soviet capability to attack US ICBMs never existed in the first place. The report examined a wide array of potential attack scenarios, and demonstrated that none allowed the Soviets to significantly blunt a US response, nor seriously limit its options in the flexible response policy.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Delivered 6 April 1983, the report suggested deploying 100 MX in existing Minuteman silos as a "demonstration of national will", but in other ways basically suggested eliminating both MX and Minuteman and replacing them with a small single-warhead mobile ICBM. On 10 August, the Secretary of Defense ordered 100 Peacekeepers be deployed at Warren AFB in Wyoming and began development of what became the MGM-134 Midgetman.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: By this time both the US and USSR were beginning to field third-generation SLBMs with greatly improved accuracy. These now arguably had all of the capability of the land-based ICBMs, and were equally able to carry out the counterforce mission. Additionally, the submarines could maneuver much closer to their targets, greatly reducing the warning time, potentially to the point that the command structure would not have time to launch their ICBMs and bombers before the warheads were reaching them.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The development of the Trident II, which was described as "effective against most of the hardened military targets, including missile silos and launch control centers", reopened the debate about MX. If Trident was capable of carrying out the mission originally intended for MX, and do so from a completely protected and mobile platform, what capabilities did MX add?


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: A compromise was eventually developed in mid-1983. Under this scheme, 100 missiles would be deployed in existing Minuteman silos to "show national will". The plan also called for the removal of the old and accident-prone liquid fueled Titan II from use. However, this did not address the problem the MX was originally intended to solve, providing high survivability. This would later be addressed through the re-introduction of the "rail garrison" concept, with twenty-five trains each carrying two missiles. This system was expected to be operational in 1992. The supposed counterforce gap, then being widely talked about on television, also resulted in the schedule for silo deployment being moved up, dropping the production time from 44 months to 29.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Additionally, the plan also called for the development of an entirely new missile, which would emerge as the MGM-134 Midgetman. The Midgetman deliberately carried only one warhead and was highly mobile. Countering a single Midgetman would require the Soviets to blanket an area around its last known position with warheads. Even if this was successful, they would destroy only a single warhead. Faced with this choice, it was expected the Soviets would instead expend their warheads on easier targets.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison is a mobile missile system that was developed by the United States Air Force during the 1980s as part of a plan to place fifty MGM-118A Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles on the rail network of the United States. The railcars were intended, in case of increased threat of nuclear war, to be deployed onto the nation's rail network to avoid being destroyed by a first strike counterforce attack by the Soviet Union. However the plan was cancelled as part of defense cutbacks following the end of the Cold War, and the Peacekeeper missiles were installed in silo launchers as LGM-118s instead.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The new ICBM was originally planned to be called "Peacemaker", but at the last minute was officially designated the LGM-118A Peacekeeper. It was first test fired on 17 June 1983, by the Air Force Systems Command Ballistic Missile Office (Norton AFB, CA), 6595th Missile Test Group (Vandenberg AFB, CA Strategic Air Command), and Martin Marietta, from Vandenberg AFB, California Test Pad-01, traveling to strike successfully in the Kwajalein Test Range in the Pacific. The first eight test flights were launched from an above ground canister on TP-01, with the remaining test and operational Strategic Air Command flights from silos (LF-02, −05, & -08) all located on North Vandenberg AFB. A total of 50 flight tests were accomplished.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The operational missile was first manufactured in February 1984 and was deployed in December 1986 to the Strategic Air Command, 90th Strategic Missile Wing at the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming in re-fitted Minuteman silos. However, the AIRS was not yet ready and the missiles were deployed with non-operational guidance units. AIRS had 19,000 parts and some of these required as many as 11,000 testing steps. Bogged down in paperwork due to government procurement policies, managers started bypassing official channels and buying replacement parts wherever they could be found, including claims that some of the parts were sourced at Radio Shack. In other cases, managers had created false shell companies to order needed test equipment.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: When these allegations were released by "60 Minutes" and the "Los Angeles Times", the fallout was immediate. Northrop was slapped with a $130 million fine for late delivery, and when they reacted against employees they were countersued in whistleblower suits. The Air Force also admitted that 11 of the 29 missiles deployed were not operational. A Congressional report stated that "Northrop was behind schedule before it even started" and noted that the Air Force knew as early as 1985 that there were "serious system deficiencies as well as a lack of effective progress". They complained that the Air Force should have come clean and simply pushed back the deployment date, but instead, in order to foster the illusion of progress, the missiles were deployed in a non-operational state.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The first prototype AIRS, by then known more generically as the Inertial Measurement Unit, or IMU, was delivered in May 1986, 203 days late. It was not until July 1987 that the first production AIRS were ready to ship, and the complete supply for the first 50 missiles was not complete until December 1988. Given these delays, and increased performance of the UGM-133 Trident II, Congress had already cancelled the 100-missile option in July 1985. In that decision, Congress limited the deployment of Peacekeeper ICBMs to 50 missiles until a more "survivable" basing plan could be developed.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: Development of the rail garrison system was carried out in parallel. However, budgetary constraints and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to its being scrapped. The National Museum of the United States Air Force has a rail garrison box car on display, and developmental remnants of the program can still be found at Vandenberg Air Force Base.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The project had already cost around $20 billion up to 1998 and produced 114 missiles, at $400 million for each operational missile. The "flyaway" cost of each warhead was estimated at 20 to 70 million dollars.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The missiles were gradually retired, with 17 withdrawn during 2003, leaving 29 missiles on alert at the beginning of 2004, and only 10 by the beginning of 2005. The last Peacekeeper was removed from alert on 19 September 2005 during the final deactivation ceremony when the 400th Missile Squadron was inactivated as well. During the ceremony an Under-Secretary of the Air Force credited the Peacekeeper with helping to end the Cold War.


title: LGM-118 Peacekeeper

text: The Peacekeeper rockets were converted to the satellite launcher role by Orbital Sciences, as the Minotaur IV (OSP-2), while the warheads were redeployed on the existing Minuteman III missiles. Parts of the missile Roll Control System (RoCS) were reused during the Ares I-X test for the Constellation program.


title: Bimbisara

text: Bimbisāra (in Buddhist tradition) or Shrenika () and Seniya () in the Jain histories (c. 558 – c. 491 BCE or during the late 5th century BCE) was a King of Magadha ( or c. 400 BCE) and belonged to the Haryanka dynasty. He was the son of Bhattiya. His expansion of the kingdom, especially his annexation of the kingdom of Anga to the east, is considered to have laid the foundations for the later expansion of the Mauryan Empire.


title: Bimbisara

text: According to Jain Tradition, he is said to be the first Tirthankara ("will be named as Padmanabha / Mahapadma") out of 24th Tirthankara of the future cosmic age. He frequently visited Samavasarana of Lord Mahavira seeking answers to his queries.


title: Bimbisara

text: According to Buddhist Tradition, he is also known for his cultural achievements and was a great friend and protector of the Buddha. According to the 7th century Chinese monk Xuanzang, Bimbisara built the city of Rajgir (Rajagriha). He was succeeded on the throne by his son Ajatashatru.


title: Bimbisara

text: Bimbisara was the son of Bhattiya, a chieftain. He ascended to throne at the age of 15 in 543 BCE. He established the Haryanka dynasty and laid the foundations of Magadha with the fortification of a village, which later became the city of Pataliputra. Bimbisara's first capital was at "Girivraja" (identified with Rajagriha). He led a military campaign against Anga, perhaps to avenge his father's earlier defeat at the hands of its king, "Brahmadatta". The campaign was successful, Anga was annexed, and prince "Kunika" (Ajatashatru) was appointed governor at Champa. His conquest of Anga gave Magadha control over the routes to the Ganges Delta, which had important ports that gave access to the eastern coast of India. Pukkusati, the king of Gandhara, sent Bimbisara an embassy.


title: Bimbisara

text: His court is said to have included Sona Kolivisa, Sumana (flower gatherer), Koliya (minister), Kumbhaghosaka (treasurer) and Jivaka (physician).


title: Bimbisara

text: Bimbisara used marriage alliances to strengthen his position. His first wife was Kosala Devi, the daughter of Mahā Kosala, the king of Kosala, and a sister of Prasenajit. His bride brought him Kashi as dowry. This marriage also ended the hostility between Magadha and Kosala and gave him a free hand in dealing with the other states. His second wife, Chellana, was a Licchavi princess from Vaishali and daughter of the Jain king Chetaka. His third wife, "Kshema", was a daughter of the chief of the Madra clan of Punjab. "Mahavagga" depicts him having 500 wives.


title: Bimbisara

text: As per Buddhism, due to influence by Dustabandu Divadatt (a Buddhist monk), Bimbisara was assassinated by his son Ajatashatru in c. 493 BCE, who then succeeded him to the throne. However, as per Jainism, Bimbisara committed suicide.


title: Bimbisara

text: Bimbisara is referred to as Shrenika of Rajgir in Jain literature who became a devotee of Jainism impressed by the calmness of Jain Mun Yamadhar. He frequently visited Samavasarana of Lord Mahavira seeking answers to his queries. He asked about the jain Ramayana and an illuminating sage (King Prasana). He is said to be a "Balabhadra" in one of his previous lives.


title: Bimbisara

text: Per Jain scripture, Bimbisara killed himself in a fit of passion, after his son had imprisoned him. Consequently, he was reborn in hell, where he is currently residing, until the karma which led to his birth there comes to an end. It is further written, that he will be reborn as "Mahapadma" (sometimes called "Padmanabha"), the first in the chain of future tirthankaras who are to rise at the beginning of the upward motion ("Utsarpini") of the next era of time.


title: Bimbisara

text: According to Buddhist scriptures, King Bimbisara met the Buddha for the first time prior to the Buddha's enlightenment, and later became an important disciple that featured prominently in certain Buddhist suttas. He is recorded to have attained sotapannahood, a degree of enlightenment in Buddhist teachings. Although Bimbisara let the women in his palace visit Buddha in his monastery in the evenings; the women wanted a hair-and-nail stupa they could use to venerate the Buddha any time. Bimbisara spoke with Buddha who complied with their request.


title: Bimbisara

text: According to Puranas, Bimbisara ruled Magadha for a period of 28 or 38 years. Sinhalese chronicles date his reign to be of 52 years.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: During World War I and World War II, Switzerland maintained armed neutrality, and was not invaded by its neighbors, in part because of its topography, much of which is mountainous. Germany was a threat and Switzerland built a powerful defense. It served as a "protecting power" for the belligerents of both sides, with a special role in helping prisoners of war. The belligerent states made it the scene for diplomacy, espionage, and commerce, as well as being a safe haven for 300,000 refugees.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: In "The War in the Air" - an apocalyptic prediction of the coming global conflict, published in 1908, six years before the actual outbreak of war - H.G. Wells assumed that Switzerland would join the coming war and fight on the side of Germany. Wells is known to have visited Switzerland in 1903, a visit which inspired his book "A Modern Utopia", and his assessment of Swiss inclinations might have been inspired by what he heard from Swiss people in that visit.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: Switzerland maintained a state of armed neutrality during the first world war. However, with two of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and two of the Entente Powers (France and Italy) all sharing borders and populations with Switzerland, neutrality proved difficult. Under the Schlieffen Plan, the German General Staff had been open to the possibility of trying to outflank the French fortifications by marching through Switzerland in violation of its neutrality, although the plan's eventual executor Helmuth von Moltke the Younger selected Belgium instead due to Switzerland's mountainous topography and the disorganized state of the Belgian Armed Forces. From December 1914 until the spring of 1918, Swiss troops were deployed in the Jura along the French border over concern that the trench war might spill into Switzerland. Of lesser concern was the Italian border, but troops were also stationed in the Unterengadin region of Graubünden.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: While the German-speaking majority in Switzerland generally favored the Central Powers, the French- and, later, Italian-speaking populations sided with the Entente Powers, which would cause internal conflict in 1918. However, the country managed to keep out of the war, although it was blockaded by the Allies and therefore suffered some difficulties. Nevertheless, because Switzerland was centrally located, neutral, and generally undamaged, the war allowed the growth of the Swiss banking industry. For the same reasons, Switzerland became a haven for foreign refugees and revolutionaries.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: Following the organization of the army in 1907 and military expansion in 1911, the Swiss Army consisted of about 250,000 men with an additional 200,000 in supporting roles. Both European alliance-systems took the size of the Swiss military into account in the years prior to 1914, especially in the Schlieffen Plan.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: Following the declarations of war in late July 1914, on 1 August 1914, Switzerland mobilized its army; by 7 August the newly appointed general Ulrich Wille had about 220,000 men under his command. By 11 August Wille had deployed much of the army along the Jura border with France, with smaller units deployed along the eastern and southern borders. This remained unchanged until May 1915 when Italy entered the war on the Entente side, at which point troops were deployed to the Unterengadin valley, Val Müstair and along the southern border.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: Once it became clear that the Allies and the Central Powers would respect Swiss neutrality, the number of troops deployed began to drop. After September 1914, some soldiers were released to return to their farms and to vital industries. By November 1916 the Swiss had only 38,000 men in the army. This number increased during the winter of 1916–17 to over 100,000 as a result of a proposed French attack that would have crossed Switzerland. When this attack failed to occur the army began to shrink again. Because of widespread workers' strikes, at the end of the war the Swiss army had shrunk to only 12,500 men.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: During the war "belligerents" crossed the Swiss borders about 1,000 times, with some of these incidents occurring around the "Dreisprachen Piz" (Three Languages Peak), near the Stelvio Pass. Switzerland had an outpost and a hotel (which was destroyed as it was used by the Austrians) on the peak. During the war, fierce battles were fought in the ice and snow of the area, with gunfire coming on to Swiss territory. The three nations made an agreement not to fire over Swiss territory, which jutted out between Austria (to the north) and Italy (to the south). Instead they could fire down the pass, as Swiss territory was around the peak. In one incident, a Swiss soldier was killed at his outpost on "Dreisprachen Piz" by Italian gunfire.


title: Switzerland during the World Wars

text: During the fighting, Switzerland became a haven for many politicians, artists, pacifists, and thinkers. Bern, Zürich, and Geneva became centers of debate and discussion. In Zürich two very different anti-war groups, the Bolsheviks and the Dadaists, would bring lasting changes to the world.