About 700m years ago, the Earth froze over entirely - now we may know why

[IbogaProject]

1. Here just clicking through w journal worked

Plain Language Summary
During the Neoproterozoic eon (c. 1,000−1,540 Ma), the Earth plunged into the Snowball climate state, but the causes for this event are still debated. One hypothesis is that increased weathering of silicate rocks, which draws co2 out of the atmosphere, caused global cooling by reducing the greenhouse effect. Recently, precise dating of Neoproterozoic geologic events showed that a massive expanse of particularly weatherable minerals erupted directly before the Sturtian Snowball event, suggesting that it enhanced silicate weathering enough to cause the Snowball. We model the weathering process and climate response and show that this is indeed a feasible Snowball trigger mechanism given a cold background climate, rapid weathering and erosion over a large area, and persistent weathering even as the climate cools. Proposed causes for Snowball events must also explain why other Snowball events did not occur earlier or later in Earth's history; we show that earlier in Earth's history, higher levels of atmospheric co2 may have made the climate more stable against sudden changes in weathering, and later in Earth's history, Snowball events may have been prevented by hot background temperatures or less efficient weathering