During webinar delivered by our guest scientist, dr Ashley Gumsley, we'll dive deep into the past of Earth. In this lesson you'll learn all your need to know about this most dramatic of Earth’s cycles – that of a global glaciation unlike any that we know of in our own history, and which encased the world in ice.

The Earth has we know it hasn’t always been like the world we know today. In deep time, the planet was without multi-cellular life, and the plants and animals that developed through it. It was also without significant free oxygen, and the organisms that existed, lived in ways very different than today. During these early Precambrian times, the Earth experienced at least two distinct episodes of global glaciation, i.e., a Snowball Earth. The causes and results of this series of events are the subject of debate, but many things need to happen in order to make a Snowball Earth, and one of the consequences, of course, is the world that we know today. In this lesson you'll learn all your need to know about this most dramatic of Earth’s cycles – that of a global glaciation unlike any that we know of in our own history, and which encased the world in ice.

Presenter: Ashley Gumsley