Hit or miss: glacial incisions of snowball Earth

Abstract

Estimated at ~58 Myr in duration, the Sturtian snowball Earth (ca. 717‐659 Ma) is one of the longest‐known glaciations in Earth history. Surprisingly few uncontroversial lines of evidence for glacial incisions associated with such a protracted event exist. We report here multiple lines of geologic field evidence for deep but variable glacial erosion during the Sturtian glaciation. One incision, on the scale of several kilometers, represents the deepest incision documented for snowball Earth; another much more modest glacial valley, however, suggests an erosion rate similar to sluggish Quaternary glaciers. The heterogeneity in snowball glacial incisions reported here and elsewhere were likely influenced by actively extending horst‐and‐graben topography associated with the breakup of supercontinent Rodinia.

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ORCID for Thomas Gernon: orcid.org/0000-0002-7717-2092

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