Talk:Snowball Earth

message: Some have claimed that his article is POV-ridden, but I personally find it to go beyond that. The intro and first two chapters is not trying to convince the reader about the validity of this hypothesis, it takes it for granted, and present it more or less as a fact. To the extent of my knowledge is there no consensus regarding this hypothesis, and the article ought to reflect that.
--Sparviere (talk) 23:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The article begins by identifying this as a hypothesis. As I read it now there is no implication that this hypothesis is widely accepted. The Introduction should describe the hypothesis and characterize its status within the scientific community or within the history of scientific knowledge. As it stands the Introduction is already a mess due to the overeagerness of critical editors to blurt out detailed counterpoints and objections before we've even had a discussion of the hypothesis, its history, and the evidence for it, if any. This hyper-critical approach has already left us with a schizophrenic Introduction. Let's exercise some patience and let the article unfold as it would in a classroom or traditional reference book article. 75.73.91.254 (talk) 20:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Do not treat it as a FACT

message: cleaned up that little section, it seemed confused before --Ezkerraldean (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: True Polar Wander

message: I'm finding more indications of imbalance in this article, since it tries to persuade us that the SNOWBALL EARTH theory is generally unlikely, when the consensus/evidence may not agree (and I suspect this is a bad way to write an article anyway).
For instance, there is an (almost totally useless!) picture of a wind-blown ice-sheet with the caption "Global ice sheets may have delayed or prevented the establishment of multicellular life." But the article says the opposite - all references to "multi-cellular" seem to tell me the same thing that presenter Tony Robinson did, SE was a vital factor triggering complex organisms as we know them! I hesitate to edit this article, because it is much more nuanced and dense than I can yet fully understand, but I'm sure that picture and caption should come out. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 09:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Then yank 'em. I don't think there is  currently anyone with the expertise and motivation to really do a good job on the article, so since you seem interested, be bold. Awickert (talk) 16:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If this article was written as I think it should be, putting a positive gloss on the theory and then providing all the good reasons for not believing it, then people like me could come in and make incremental improvements. As it stands, it makes progress along the lines intended in WP:CCC virtually impossible. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 16:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, then, maybe it needs more fundamental help from interested folks like you. Awickert (talk) 17:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Balance is missing

message: I think that this article should be of more importance!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom (talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Higher importance?

message: I saw a history channel (or similar channel) and maybe someone could get permission from them to use some of them.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdoom (talk • contribs) 19:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations?

message: kailangan po na wag pong magputol ng three forest para po hindi po tayo magkaroon ng pagbaha sa ating kapaligiran kaya po iwasan po nating magputol ng mga puno ayan lang po ang aking palala sa nag puputol ng puno sa gubat natin dapat nating pangalagaan natin to  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.200.111.129 (talk) 13:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  flood water 

message: I propose this article be tagged as POV because, perhaps accidentally, or perhaps as a side result of the cabal controlling Global Warming and all articles on GW/AGW, it fails to deliver value to the reader.
A supporter of the article in it's current condition has written a thoughtful defense of the current state of the article on my TalkPage and he may well be right - Brittanica and New Scientist indeed treat this theory as likely false and up against unresolved scientific problems respectively.
However, public awareness rates Channel 4 and, in particular, the actor/presenter Tony Robinson, far higher than the august sources mentioned above - and our spokesman insists that even a mention of the documentary available on-line will never happen. I've since found a 2001 BBC documentary that appears to support SE as well.
I'm not prepared to argue with contentions made that seem to comply with no policy whatsoever, but I'd like this article to be tagged POV until someone else fights for the balance it deserves. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 16:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're seriously sayng the we should defer to Tony Robinson on our coverage of science? I'm watching the BBC Horizon documentary now and they definitely represent it as fringe. --TS 16:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

text: You have got to be kidding... We prefer Channel 4 and "public awareness" over science ... On a scientific subject? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 04:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Malcolm: edit / improve the article if you like. Snowball Earth is generally (but certainly far from universally) accepted in the scientific community. I don't see why we shouldn't add to "external links" links to online-available documentaries. However, documentaries are often spun, so best to use them as an "external link" rather than "the truth", especially since the documentary you mention seems to pick one side of the scientific argument (which is the side I happen to agree with, but not everyone does). Also to Malcolm: I hate talk:Global Warming and related battlegrounds; please strike parts of your post that are designed to accuse and inflame instead of produce, or I will delete this thread per WP:TALK and the fact that this is a rehash of what we've discussed earlier. Awickert (talk) 05:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a small further change (rewording where it speaks of Mawson's "wrong assumption"). I see a tag "not referenced" at section "Mechanisms" here - can someone more expert than me put in the necessary links? Or tell me where there is a good discussion? MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 08:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tag this as POV 

message: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5970/1186 William M. Connolley (talk) 12:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That article ("Snowball Earth Has Melted Back To a Profound Wintry Mix", Science, 5 March 2010) is a good review of the topic; you all might take a look at it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science article 

message: Are there any objections with replacing the existing timeline with one using ?  I believe this is more readable, and allows for automatic colouring and placement of periods in the timeline.  Also, from the discussion above, it appears there are some problems with the rendering of the existing timeline, which this could fix. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks great - thanks for putting the work into this! I'd support using this one as a replacement. Awickert (talk) 17:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Supported Babakathy (talk) 20:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

text:  Yes, go for it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:54, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

text: Certainly an improvement.  Any chance of extending it to include the Paleoproterozoic era? --Michael C. Price talk 11:00, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That could be done, but are there specific named events to put within that Era? Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:33, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If I've understood the links correctly then this snowball phase was triggered by the great oxygenation event. --Michael C. Price talk 19:30, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snowball Earth graphical timeline 

message: New age dates from the
The "Marinoan" glaciation could be very short. See new age dates from Nantuo Formation in South China
 Aleksey (Alnagov (talk) 21:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The duration of "Marinoan" glaciation 

message: A portion of the Evidence section appears to be original research. I believe it is suspicious, and significant, for the following reasons:
# The surrounding citations do not appear to contain the numbered decomposition. The particular presentation of this decomposition implies it is decisive and widely agreed upon. There are no citations to support these implications.
# It purports to specify what the evidence "must prove" in order for the "theory" to be valid. This presentation is not typical of writing in the scientific literature about hypotheses in geological history. It does not appear to characterize the ongoing scientific work on the hypothesis nor the disposition of the scientific community to that work.
# The Evidence and Scientific Dispute sections would be improved if this original research frame were removed from the presentation and they were allowed to stand on their own.
# The portion classifies Snowball Earth as a theory rather than a hypothesis, whereas the introductory paragraph of the article classifies Snowball Earth as a hypothesis.
I refer to the following portion:
"Critical to an assessment of the validity of the theory, therefore, is an understanding of the reliability and significance of the evidence that led to the belief that ice ever reached the tropics. This evidence must prove two things:
# that a bed contains sedimentary structures that could have been created only by glacial activity;
# that the bed lay within the tropics when it was deposited.
During a period of global glaciation, it must also be demonstrated that
:3. glaciers were active at different global locations at the same time, and that no other deposits of the same age are in existence.
This last point is very difficult to prove. Before the Ediacaran, the biostratigraphic markers usually used to correlate rocks are absent; therefore there is no way to prove that rocks in different places across the globe were deposited at the same time. The best that can be done is to estimate the age of the rocks using radiometric methods, which are rarely accurate to better than a million years or so."
I recommend this portion of the evidence section be removed if a citations cannot be provided for each point.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.91.254 (talk) 20:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence section appears to contain substantial original research 

message: 9 Jan 2012
More study has recently being done to remagnetisation eg Rowan 2010, Font 2011, which casts doubts on postions of the paleo-magnetic poles, which also implies that low altitude glaciation may not have been on low lattitudes.
AndrePooh (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remagnetisation casts doubt on reconstructions of paleomagnetic poles 

message: What is the point of this section? Apart from promoting a special group of researchers. There is lots of field work going on on this topic worldwide. I suggest this to be deleted.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.238.141.50 (talk) 16:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Was in 2009 reading tea-leaves anyway. Alfie↑↓© 00:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Current field work

message: The evidence section start off mention the 'apparent presence of glaciers at tropical latitudes' this should surely be the 'apparent presence of sea level altitude glaciers at tropical latitudes', as I believe there are (still) glaciers on the top of Kilimanjaro, and in the equatorial Andes.1812ahill (talk) 17:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  There are currently glaciers at the equator! 

message: The Initiating snowball earth section has this sentance: 'During the Cryogenian period, however, the Earth's continents were all at tropical latitudes' when this is clearly contradicted by the maps of continental distributions in the section above it which show a polar centred distribution. Confusing! (1812ahill (talk) 19:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initiation section 

message: What could have happened to compensate for your discovery of certain minerals that could only form under a huge glacier and that glacier was in a landmass that plate tektonics placed it on the equator during the time it had the glacier has 2 possible explanations
1) the tracking of the plates backwards in time was done incorrectly and they weren't at the equator.
2) the landmass was in fact in the position of the current equator but the current equator may not be the same as the old equator (the entire crust of the earth shifted at some point in time and what you thought of was equator was in fact one of the poles)
it's easy to prove, just look at french polynesia and you'll see all the proof you desire. nothing caused those volcanic islands that collapsed to create the coral islands, no plate tektonics can cause them, and if the crust flipped over the island chain will fit in perfectly with the missing bit between hawaii and siberia.  speaking of hot spots, you can see proof that the moon was made via a catastrophic strike by looking at the relationship between hawaii's hot spot and yellowstone's.
Wheller007 (talk) 03:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible anti-snowball earth explanation [[User:Wheller007|Wheller007]] ([[User talk:Wheller007|talk]]) 03:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC) 

message: ===Move to "Snowball earth"?===
:The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the move request was: The result of the page move request was:  Withdrawn by nominator. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
=== "Snowball Earth" or "snowball Earth"? ===
Please discuss here whether this late Precambrian geological period should be named "Snowball Earth" (uppercase S) or "snowball Earth" (lowercase s). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

text: P.S. Google search shows mostly uppercase 'S' here. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Even if you ignore the book evidence I linked above and prefer to use random web pages, there's nothing in MOS:CAPS about going with majority usage.  This is clearly not a proper name, per evidence in books and in the cited sources, and should not be capitalized per MOS:CAPS.  Most scholarly papers do it in a style like ours, too (if you look past the titles).   I will put it back to "snowball Earth".   Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the capitalization should comport with scholarly usage, not majority usage. A general Google search does indeed return many more results where the term is stylized as "Snowball Earth", but as Dicklyon points out, a Google Scholar search--which is much more reflective of scholarly usage--returns mostly results where the term as stylized as "snowball Earth." Unless some additional evidence comes to light to suggest that the proper style per scientific usage is otherwise, we should use "snowball Earth" in this article. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 16:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization

message: Please discuss here whether this late Precambrian geological period should be named "Snowball Earth" (uppercase S) or "snowball Earth" (lowercase s). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. Google search shows mostly uppercase 'S' here. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Even if you ignore the book evidence I linked above and prefer to use random web pages, there's nothing in MOS:CAPS about going with majority usage.  This is clearly not a proper name, per evidence in books and in the cited sources, and should not be capitalized per MOS:CAPS.  Most scholarly papers do it in a style like ours, too (if you look past the titles).   I will put it back to "snowball Earth".   Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the capitalization should comport with scholarly usage, not majority usage. A general Google search does indeed return many more results where the term is stylized as "Snowball Earth", but as Dicklyon points out, a Google Scholar search--which is much more reflective of scholarly usage--returns mostly results where the term as stylized as "snowball Earth." Unless some additional evidence comes to light to suggest that the proper style per scientific usage is otherwise, we should use "snowball Earth" in this article. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 16:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Snowball Earth" or "snowball Earth"? 

message: I have noticed that the discussion of mechanisms to end the hypothesized Snowball Earth episodes does not include the idea of asteroid impacts.  Even a small asteroid will throw up a large amount of dust that would cover the ice and turn sunlight into heat.  Further the flood volcanism instigated on the opposite side of the planet by the impact's shock waves would throw up more dust and large quantities of carbon dioxide.  The subsequent global warming event would then end the super-ice age.  Over the past eon significant asteroid impacts and their associated flood volcanism have occurred roughly 60 million years apart, frequently enough to keep Earth mostly ice free.  I can't believe that I am the only person who has conceive this idea.  Surely some geologist somewhere has conceived it and published a paper describing it.  All we need is a Wikipedian with expertise in the literature of geology to find that paper and improve this article accordingly. Kanawishi (talk) 15:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You're not the only one, it was proposed a few years ago by Abbot & Pierrehumbert (2010) that volcanic dust might do the trick. They proposed the ice was coated by layers of volcanic dust that decreased albedo and provoked melting; Abbot, D.S. & Pierrehumbert, R.T. 2010. Mudball: Surface dust and snowball Earth deglaciation. J. Geophys. Res, 115, D03104. Also, Gudmundsson et al., (2012) directly measured the effects of volcanic aerosol deposition on the Langjökull ice, yes, volcanic aerosols caused increased rates of melting; Gudmundsson, S., Pálsson, F., Björnsson, H., Magnússon, E., Thorsteinsson, T. & Haraldsson, H.H. 2012. The impact of volcanic aerosols on the energy-and mass balance of Langjökull ice cap, SW-Iceland. In: AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. 0659. So it seems a plausible idea has been confirmed in the field.--Diamonddavej (talk) 18:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

text: Brief note on new investigation and literature TGCP (talk) 22:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Snowball Breakout

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The intro says the hypothetical snowballs occurred earlier than 650mya, but the accompanying geological timescale graphic shows two later snowball episodes. Are these latter snowballs not included in the "Snwoball Earth hypothesis"? AxelBoldt (talk) 17:30, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timescale contradicting intro paragraph? 

message: The article currently lists the date of creation of the term "snowball Earth" as 1992, based on the publication of Kirschvink (1992) but this article that interviews Paul Hoffman says Kirschvink came up with it in 1989 and that seems to be a pretty reputable source. Is that sufficient to change the date listed in the article? This article also says 1989 but I'm not sure if that's more convincing since (1) it's written by the same author as the previous article and (2) the source listed in this article is snowballearth.org and thus a self-published primary source. Thoughts? - Procyonidae (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  When the term "snowball Earth" was coined 

message: The idea of a snowball earth was defeated in a paper: Comment on ‘The Neoproterozoic (1000-540 Ma) glacial intervals: No more snowball earth?’ by Joseph G. Meert and Rob van der Voo
Author links open overlay panelGeorge E.Williamsa1Phillip W.SchmidtbBrian J.J.Embletonc, where it wa shown that all the paleomagnetic data was in error and so, no snowball earth. 76.68.129.192 (talk) 22:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence that refuted snowball earth