EGU25-12696, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12696
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Earth’s first Phanerozoic-style icehouse in the late Neoproterozoic
Thomas W. Wong Hearing1, Alexandre Pohl2, Benjamin H. Tindal3, Thomas M. Vandyk4,5, Frédéric Fluteau6, Alexander G. Liu7, Thomas H. P. Harvey1, and Mark Williams1
Thomas W. Wong Hearing et al.
  • 1Centre for Palaeobiology and Biosphere Evolution, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  • 2Biogéosciences, UMR 6282 CNRS, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
  • 3Chief Scientist’s Directorate, Natural England, Leeds, UK
  • 4Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • 5School of Natural Sciences, Birkbeck University of London, London, UK
  • 6Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France
  • 7Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

The Ediacaran Period (635 Ma to 538.8 Ma) was a crucial transition interval for the Earth System between the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic worlds. Ediacaran rocks preserve evidence for both profound changes to the global carbon cycle via the stable carbon isotope record, and the emergence of ecosystems containing complex macroscopic organisms, including early animals, through the trace and body fossil records. Nevertheless, geological evidence of Earth’s climate through the Ediacaran is poorly constrained and often equivocal, which limits deeper comprehension of how the Earth System functioned during this time, and the possible feedbacks between biotic and climatic evolution.

The Ediacaran Period is sandwiched between the Cryogenian Period (720 Ma to 635 Ma), which may have been characterised at times by extreme ‘Snowball Earth’ icehouse conditions, and the Cambrian Period (538.8 Ma to 486.85 Ma), which was likely a prolonged greenhouse interval. There is abundant geological evidence of glaciation in the mid- to late Ediacaran (~593 to 579 Ma) that, whilst challenging to correlate in detail, appears to break the ‘Snowball Earth’ mould of globally distributed low altitude ice seen during the preceding Cryogenian Period. In particular, a cluster of glacial deposits on palaeocontinental Avalonia and Gondwana are associated with this interval, with glaciation considered to have terminated just prior to the first appearance of early animal fossils.

Here, we critically evaluate the depositional ages and likely glaciogenicity of candidate glacial deposits of plausibly mid-Ediacaran age. Our re-evaluated dataset provides a framework for assessing the geographical and temporal extent of icehouse conditions in the mid-Ediacaran. We combine this framework with new climate and icesheet model simulations to examine the possible nature of the climate system through this interval. Our data-model comparison supports the hypothesis that, in contrast to the preceding Cryogenian-style ‘Snowball Earth’, the mid-Ediacaran icehouse followed the Phanerozoic paradigm of low altitude ice confined to the mid- to high palaeolatitudes, a pattern of glaciation that continues to the present day.

How to cite: Wong Hearing, T. W., Pohl, A., Tindal, B. H., Vandyk, T. M., Fluteau, F., Liu, A. G., Harvey, T. H. P., and Williams, M.: Earth’s first Phanerozoic-style icehouse in the late Neoproterozoic, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12696, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12696, 2025.