Study finds early life on Earth got a boost from ... Glaciers and uranium?

Study finds early life on Earth got a boost from ... Glaciers and uranium?
Show Caption
Hide Caption
'Doomsday Glacier' could be disastrous if it collapses into sea
Warmed by ocean currents, Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier could collapse in a few years causing a sea levels to rise by several feet, researchers say.
Scott L. Hall, USA TODAY
About 700 million years ago, enormous glaciers flowed across the Earth's surface in powerful frozen rivers like "giant ice bulldozers" that pulverized our planet's crust and may have contributed to the evolution of complex life along their way, new research shows.
A study published in Geology, a journal published by the Geological Society of America, on Tuesday found glaciers in rivers sometimes more than a mile deep scraped parts of the Earth's crust, releasing key minerals and setting off "chemical chain reactions that reshaped the planet," study author Chris Kirkland, who teaches and leads the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group at Curtin University in Australia, said in a statement.
'When these giant ice sheets melted, they triggered enormous floods that flushed minerals and their chemicals, including uranium, into the oceans,' Kirkland said. 'This influx of elements changed ocean chemistry, at a time when more complex life was starting to evolve.'
Kirkland and researchers the University of Portsmouth in England and St. Francis Xavier University in Canada chemically analyzed crystals in rocks from Earth's Cryogenian period. Earth was so cold at the time that the oceans were frozen all the way to the equator, and life only existed in the oceans and on continental shelves, study co-author Donnelly Archibald, of St. Francis Xavier University, said in a statement.
'Our research shows that ancient glaciers did far more than shape the landscape - they triggered chemical transformations that helped set the stage for complex life," said study co-author, Rob Strachan , emeritus professor at the university. "These findings highlight the deep connections between Earth's geology, climate, and the evolution of life itself.'
The planet experienced at least two "extreme global glaciations" during the Cryogenian period, traces of which can be observed in sedimentary rocks, Kirkland wrote in The Conversation.
The Doomsday Glacier is melting − fast: How sea level rise could drench the world map.
It's not clear what triggered those events, but high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produced by volcanic activity may have later caused the planet to warm and the ice to melt, according to Kirkland. He wrote that while many scientists believe that this caused changes in the ocean's chemistry that set the stage for the development of complex life, his new research found that the paths carved by the retreating glaciers may also have been a factor.
The glaciers ground surface rock into fine sediment, which flowed rapidly into the oceans, Archibald said in a statement. 'Some of this sediment carried essential nutrients to the oceans and fundamentally changed ocean chemistry and oxygen levels in the atmosphere, which may have stimulated the evolution of multicellular life," he said.
The uranium that was released into the ocean by the movement of melting glaciers, for example, boosted oxygen levels in the water, helped cycle nutrients and fueled underwater heat sources, all of which may have contributed to the early development of life, the University of Portsmouth said in a release.
Kirkland said the research can not only help understand ancient climate shifts, but also modern, human-influenced climate change.
"These ancient climate shifts demonstrate that environmental changes, whether natural or human-driven, have profound and lasting impacts," Kirkland said. "Understanding these past events can help us better predict how today's climate changes might reshape our world."

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Forbes

19 minutes ago

• Forbes

How Life Survived Snowball Earth

Artist's impression of "Snowball Earth." The Snowball Earth hypothesis suggests that, hundreds of ... More millions of years ago, the Earth's surface may have frozen solid as a result of severe climate change. During the Cryogenian period about 700 to 635 million years ago, Earth experienced a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator. Scientist have long wondered how life survived this 'Snowball Earth.' Most of the surface was covered by ice, so there was no to little sunlight reaching the oceans, and with no weathering happening on the frozen-solid continents, no nutrients were washed into the sea. Maybe hot springs deep beneath the ice provided a last viable spot where life persisted until the ice receded. In a new study, researchers at MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Waikato in New Zealand, propose an alternative hypothesis. 'We're interested in understanding the foundations of complex life on Earth. We see evidence for eukaryotes before and after the Cryogenian in the fossil record, but we largely lack direct evidence of where they may have lived during,' says lead author Fatima Husain, a graduate student in MIT. 'The great part of this mystery is, we know life survived. We're just trying to understand how and where.' The scientists found that lifeforms could have survived the global freeze by living in watery oases on the surface. Similar environmental conditions still exist today in cryoconite holes. Dark-colored dust and debris transported by glaciers to the surface absorb sunlight, heating up and melting into the ice forming small pockets and holes. At temperatures hovering around 0 degrees Celsius, the resulting meltwater ponds could have served as habitable environments for early life. Cryoconite hole on a glacier The researchers analyzed samples from a variety of cryoconite holes and meltwater ponds located on the McMurdo Ice Shelf in an area that was first described by members of Robert Falcon Scott's 1903 expedition as 'dirty ice.' They discovered clear signatures of life in every pond. Even more surprising, the communities varied from pond to pond, revealing a high diversity of life forms. There were cyanobacteria, prokaryotic, single-celled photosynthetic organisms that lack a cell nucleus or other organelles. The oldest cyanobacteria-like fossils appear on Earth over 3 billion years ago. While these ancient microbes are known to survive within some of the the harshest environments on Earth, the researchers wanted to know whether eukaryotes — complex organisms that evolved a cell nucleus and other membrane bound organelles — could also weather similarly challenging circumstances. Chemical analysis showed the presence of various molecules clearly associated with eukaryotic life. The team found that salinity plays a key role in the kind of life a pond can host: Ponds that were more brackish or salty had more similar communities, which differed from those in ponds with fresher waters. 'No two ponds were alike,' Husain explains. 'There are repeating casts of characters, but they're present in different abundances. And we found diverse assemblages of eukaryotes from all the major groups in all the ponds studied. These eukaryotes are the descendants of the eukaryotes that survived the Snowball Earth. This really highlights that meltwater ponds during Snowball Earth could have served as above-ice oases that nurtured the eukaryotic life that enabled the diversification and proliferation of complex life — including us — later on.' Additional material and interviews provided by MIT News.

Yahoo

a day ago

• Yahoo

How did life survive 'Snowball Earth'? In ponds, study suggests

Earth has not always been so hospitable to live. During several ice ages, the planet's surface was almost completely frozen over, creating what has been dubbed "Snowball Earth". Liquid water appears to be the most important ingredient for life on any planet, raising the question: how did anything survive such frosty, brutal times? A group of scientists said Thursday that they had found an astonishing diversity of micro-organisms in tiny pools of melted ice in Antarctica, suggesting that life could have ridden out Snowball Earth in similar ponds. During the Cryogenian Period between 635 and 720 million years ago, the average global temperature did not rise above -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit). The climate near the equator at the time resembled modern-day Antarctica. Yet even in such extreme conditions, life found a way to keep evolving. Fatima Husain, the lead author of a new study published in Nature Communications, told AFP there was evidence of complex life forms "before and after the Cryogenian in the fossil record". "There are multiple hypotheses regarding possible places life may have persisted," said Husain, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Perhaps it found shelter in patches of open ocean, or in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, or under vast sheets of ice. The tiny melted ice pools that dotted the equator were another proposed refuge. These ponds could have been oases for eukaryotes, complex organisms that eventually evolved into multicellular life forms that would rise to dominate Earth, including humans. - Could aliens be hiding in ponds? - Melted ice ponds still exist today in Antarctica, at the edges of ice sheets. In 2018, members of a New Zealand research team visited the McMurdo ice shelf in east Antarctica, home to several such pools, which are only a few metres wide and less a metre deep. The bottom of the ponds are lined with a mat of microbes that have accumulated over the years to form slimy layers. "These mats can be a few centimetres thick, colourful, and they can be very clearly layered," Husain said. They are made up of single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria that are known to be able to survive extreme conditions. But the researchers also found signs indicating there were eukaryotes such as algae or microscopic animals. This suggests there was surprising diversity in the ponds, which appears to have been influenced by the amount of salt each contained. "No two ponds were alike," Husain said. "We found diverse assemblages of eukaryotes from all the major groups in all the ponds studied." "They demonstrate that these unique environments are capable of sheltering diverse assemblages of life, even in close proximity," she added. This could have implications in the search for extraterrestrial life. "Studies of life within these special environments on Earth can help inform our understanding of potential habitable environments on icy worlds, including icy moons in our Solar System," Husain said. Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's Europa are covered in ice, but scientists increasingly suspect they could be home to simple forms of life, and several space missions have been launched to find out more about them. ber/dl/js

USA Today

a day ago

• USA Today

Mega rocket explodes in Texas night sky, marks series of SpaceX setbacks

Mega rocket explodes in Texas night sky, marks series of SpaceX setbacks Show Caption Hide Caption SpaceX's Starship 36 explodes after 'major anomaly' SpaceX's Starship 36 exploded during a routine static fire test after experiencing a 'major anomaly.' In what the company called "a major anomaly" SpaceX's Starship exploded late Wednesday, June 18, shooting a massive fireball and giant debris into the Texas night sky. The explosion is not the first for SpaceX and comes on the heels of a string of set backs for the 400-foot rocket system this year. The company designs, builds and manufactures advanced rockets with the end goal of enabling people to live on other planets. The blast took place about 11 p.m. local time during testing for the mega rocket in Brownsville, a city in Cameron County on the state's southwest Gulf Coast, SpaceX announced on X. Starship, "experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand," the post reads. "Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials." The company, founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, reported no injuries in the blast but asked people to avoid the area as a precaution. "There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities," the post continues. USA TODAY has reached out to SpaceX for more information. What caused SpaceX Starship explosion? The official cause of the blast remained under investigation on June 19, 2025. 'Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure,' Musk said in a post on X, referencing a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (a nitrogen gas storage unit). 'If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design." Just one day earlier, on June 17, Musk's company posted video on X of a "single-engine static fire demonstrating an in-space burn" as Starship prepared for its 10th flight test. Video captured of the incident shows the rocket appeared to experience least two explosions in quick succession. As Iran supreme leader warns America: Trump teases possible US strike When was the last Starship explosion? The last Starship explosion took place May 27, 2025, on its ninth flight when a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" occurred about an hour after blasting off. The vehicle successfully launched but contact with it was lost about 46 minutes into the flight as it spun out of control about halfway and then came apart. Its debris dropped into the Indian Ocean, SpaceX said. Flight tests also unexpectedly exploded in January and March 2025. During those incidents, vehicles used in the tests met their demise in dramatic explosions that sent cascades of fiery debris across the sky in Florida and across the Caribbean. The upper stage, the vehicle where astronauts and cargo would ride, separated minutes into its flight during the ascent. During three tests between June and November 2024, Starship flew halfway around the world before reentering Earth's atmosphere and landing safely as planned in the Indian Ocean. Bezos vs. Musk? How Amazon's Kuiper satellites look to compete with SpaceX, Starlink What is Starship? Musk's space exploration company is working for Starship to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning both the rocket and vehicle can return to earth for additional missions. In the end, the goal is for Starship to carry cargo and humans far into the cosmos. Musk plans for Starship to reach Mars by the end of 2026, with hopes human expeditions aboard the vehicle would follow in the years after the first uncrewed spacecraft reaches the Red Planet. Contributing: Cheryl McCloud and Reuters Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund.