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Early earth

Snowballs limited by weathering

A series of extreme cooling episodes, starting 750 million years ago, could have repeatedly turned the planet into an ice-covered snowball. Carbon cycle modelling suggests that the timing of the glaciations can be explained by chemical weathering rates.

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Figure 1: Fire and ice.

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Correspondence to A. Joshua West.

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West, A. Snowballs limited by weathering. Nature Geosci 4, 824–826 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1330

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