Comet Enthusiast

Before 50 million years ago the planet had no cyclical ice ages. What it did have was a pair of glacial whoppers: one about two billion years ago, followed by a billion years of warmth and another mega ice age called the Cryogenian (you get the picture!) when temperatures plunged 80 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a global Antarctica, dubbed by pundits as "Snowball Earth."

New research on the Snowball Earth epoch shows it may have had a dramatic effect on the evolutionary history of the planet. Using a core is from the approximately 2.2 billion-year-old Hotazel Formation from South Africa a University of California, Riverside team found "a signature for high marine phosphorus concentrations appearing in the immediate aftermath of the Snowball Earth glacial events," according to Noah Planavsky.