Evidence From Snowball Earth Found in Ancient Rocks on Colorado's Pikes Peak

University of Exeter professor Timothy Lenton explains why the Earth was able to freeze over 700 million years ago .

Lenton : Ice sheets encased the entire planet like a giant snowball, known as Snowball Earth .

Pikes Peak , originally named Tavá Kaa -viby the Ute people, lends its ancestral name, Tava , to these notable rocks.

He says they are composed of solidified sand injectites, which formed in a similar manner to a medical injection when sand-rich fluid was forced into underlying rock.

Such findings can help develop a clearer picture of our planet during climate extremes and the processes that led to the habitable planet we live on today . Liam Courtney-Davies is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder . Christine Siddoway is a Professor of Geology at Colorado College . Rebecca Flowers is a Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder . This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article..