Rugoconites reguibatensis Hachour et al., 2023 is a purportedly probable scyphozoan medusa from the Cryogenian (or the Tonian) (!?) It would be the oldest known metazoan if verified...
November 14, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Rugoconites reguibatensis Hachour et al., 2023 is a purportedly probable scyphozoan medusa from the Cryogenian (or the Tonian) (!?) It would be the oldest known metazoan if verified...
it took so long before the appearance of multicellular life (just after the Cryogenian) is unconvincing. It's an interesting idea, but among other things it needs a better silicate weathering model. (Plus there is no real idea of how high CO2 was before, or indeed after, the Nuna breakup).
October 29, 2025 at 8:54 PM
it took so long before the appearance of multicellular life (just after the Cryogenian) is unconvincing. It's an interesting idea, but among other things it needs a better silicate weathering model. (Plus there is no real idea of how high CO2 was before, or indeed after, the Nuna breakup).
Brought to you by that old Tor Dot Com essay of mine where I pointed out hypothetical Venusians fleeing their planet's greenhouse doom for Earth 750 million years would have found a very hostile world. The late Tonian was unpleasant and the Cryogenian was worse.
Alternatively,
Alternatively,
October 20, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Brought to you by that old Tor Dot Com essay of mine where I pointed out hypothetical Venusians fleeing their planet's greenhouse doom for Earth 750 million years would have found a very hostile world. The late Tonian was unpleasant and the Cryogenian was worse.
Alternatively,
Alternatively,
👀👀"...at least two cold climate intervals during the late Tonian Period, thereby providing novel insights into the evolution of global climate conditions in advance of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth" (preprint) ⚒️🧪❄️
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...
Tonian glaciation in South China
Paleoclimatic conditions during the Tonian Period (~1000-720 Ma), preceding the Cryogenian Snowball Earth glaciations, remain ambiguous. While the apparent paucity of glacially influenced sedimentary ...
www.researchsquare.com
October 15, 2025 at 12:01 AM
👀👀"...at least two cold climate intervals during the late Tonian Period, thereby providing novel insights into the evolution of global climate conditions in advance of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth" (preprint) ⚒️🧪❄️
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...
October 14, 2025 at 11:03 PM
*looks at the belated plus of BIF formation in the Cryogenian*
Huh....
Huh....
October 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
*looks at the belated plus of BIF formation in the Cryogenian*
Huh....
Huh....
Be happy no type of rock weathering (no, not even pure olivine dunites) is *that* good of a CO2 sink.
Otherwise Earth never would've gotten out of the Cryogenian.
Otherwise Earth never would've gotten out of the Cryogenian.
October 3, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Be happy no type of rock weathering (no, not even pure olivine dunites) is *that* good of a CO2 sink.
Otherwise Earth never would've gotten out of the Cryogenian.
Otherwise Earth never would've gotten out of the Cryogenian.
Tiny ancient life found! Scientists uncovered beautifully preserved microfossils in China from the Cryogenian period, between two massive ice ages. These microfossils mostly appear to be cyanobacteria, a key planktonic community, offering a unique peek into life forms that thrived in icy, offshor...
A Flourishing Planktonic Microbial Community in an Interglacial Offshore Environment: Silicified Microfossils From the Cryogenian Datangpo Formation, South China.
Published in Geobiology
doi.org
September 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Tiny ancient life found! Scientists uncovered beautifully preserved microfossils in China from the Cryogenian period, between two massive ice ages. These microfossils mostly appear to be cyanobacteria, a key planktonic community, offering a unique peek into life forms that thrived in icy, offshor...
The pimply texture here looks almost identical to the one I find in my pre-cryogenian material. The microbial mat material I posted earlier was extracted from a sample with similar pimply lobate forms on the bedding plane.
Happy #FossilFriday from Johnson Discovery Surface in @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social, famous for its #Fractofusus andersoni, but which also has large enigmatic forms dubbed #Blackbrookia (now considered a pseudofossil). The JDS material is however covered in pimples or meshes not seen in the type.
September 5, 2025 at 5:34 PM
The pimply texture here looks almost identical to the one I find in my pre-cryogenian material. The microbial mat material I posted earlier was extracted from a sample with similar pimply lobate forms on the bedding plane.
#FossilFriday WIP diagram of strange dumb bell-like organic walled microfossils I've been documenting in pre-Cryogenian deep water microbial mats. These things are modular and self similar, and link together to form thick mats. Deets in alt. #Geology #Paleontology #Precambrian
September 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM
#FossilFriday WIP diagram of strange dumb bell-like organic walled microfossils I've been documenting in pre-Cryogenian deep water microbial mats. These things are modular and self similar, and link together to form thick mats. Deets in alt. #Geology #Paleontology #Precambrian
The earth freezing over a couple of times hundreds of millions of years ago during the Cryogenian period turning the earth into a giant snowball 😂
Can’t forget that meteor that nuked the Dinosaurs and planet that was 9 miles wide
That one time where the north and south poles switching every couple hundred thousand years because of geomagnetic reversal(we’re WAYYY overdue for one)
August 18, 2025 at 5:31 AM
The earth freezing over a couple of times hundreds of millions of years ago during the Cryogenian period turning the earth into a giant snowball 😂
It's been a while since I did a prehistoric Earth render hasn't it? It came to my attention earlier that my Cryogenian Earth uses outdated models of Earth's landmasses, so I plan to revamp it, as well as some other prehistoric Earths I've yet to show here.
In the meantime, here's Cambrian Earth:
In the meantime, here's Cambrian Earth:
August 3, 2025 at 11:20 PM
It's been a while since I did a prehistoric Earth render hasn't it? It came to my attention earlier that my Cryogenian Earth uses outdated models of Earth's landmasses, so I plan to revamp it, as well as some other prehistoric Earths I've yet to show here.
In the meantime, here's Cambrian Earth:
In the meantime, here's Cambrian Earth:
It turns out that that the Cryogenian may have been a "Goldilocks period" for Snowball Earth events: the surface carbon reservoir had depleted enough that it was sensitive to perturbations by LIP-scale events, and other stabilizing feedbacks were less well-developed.
July 25, 2025 at 6:56 PM
It turns out that that the Cryogenian may have been a "Goldilocks period" for Snowball Earth events: the surface carbon reservoir had depleted enough that it was sensitive to perturbations by LIP-scale events, and other stabilizing feedbacks were less well-developed.
About 700m years ago, the Earth froze over entirely – now we may know why #Science #EarthSciences #Geology #Cryogenian #SnowballEarth #Paleoclimatology
About 700m years ago, the Earth froze over entirely – now we may know why
Researchers believe huge volcanic eruptions, and the absence of plants, turned our planet into one giant snowball It’s hard to believe, but about 700m years ago it’s thought that our planet completely...
purescience.news
July 23, 2025 at 12:45 PM
About 700m years ago, the Earth froze over entirely – now we may know why #Science #EarthSciences #Geology #Cryogenian #SnowballEarth #Paleoclimatology
... evolved before the Cryogenian snowballs and were not wiped out. That requires refugia near the surface, with access to sunlight.
July 16, 2025 at 9:36 AM
... evolved before the Cryogenian snowballs and were not wiped out. That requires refugia near the surface, with access to sunlight.
It's Cryogenian downstairs but Hadean upstairs.
July 14, 2025 at 11:36 PM
It's Cryogenian downstairs but Hadean upstairs.
The supraglacial meltwater ponds of the #McMurdo Ice Shelf, analogues for proposed #Cryogenian period eukaryotic refugia, are shown to host diverse and varied eukaryotic communities.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Biosignatures of diverse eukaryotic life from a Snowball Earth analogue environment in Antarctica - Nature Communications
The supraglacial meltwater ponds of the McMurdo Ice Shelf, analogues for proposed Cryogenian period eukaryotic refugia, are shown to host diverse and varied eukaryotic communities.
www.nature.com
June 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
The supraglacial meltwater ponds of the #McMurdo Ice Shelf, analogues for proposed #Cryogenian period eukaryotic refugia, are shown to host diverse and varied eukaryotic communities.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Hidden Resilience of Life: Meltwater Ponds as Sanctuaries During Earth’s Coldest Periods
Imagine Earth during the Cryogenian period—an era when glaciers, like ...
https://breaking.dog/291ff5612a724ab7a448af5d7bbf04b8?lang=en
Imagine Earth during the Cryogenian period—an era when glaciers, like ...
https://breaking.dog/291ff5612a724ab7a448af5d7bbf04b8?lang=en
June 19, 2025 at 9:24 AM
The Hidden Resilience of Life: Meltwater Ponds as Sanctuaries During Earth’s Coldest Periods
Imagine Earth during the Cryogenian period—an era when glaciers, like ...
https://breaking.dog/291ff5612a724ab7a448af5d7bbf04b8?lang=en
Imagine Earth during the Cryogenian period—an era when glaciers, like ...
https://breaking.dog/291ff5612a724ab7a448af5d7bbf04b8?lang=en
Here's an instrumental EP I made a while ago about the Cryogenian period. I've got an unfinished album of this stuff on my hard drive I'll get round to one day. haloofthesun.bandcamp.com/album/850ma #metal #heavymetal
June 15, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Here's an instrumental EP I made a while ago about the Cryogenian period. I've got an unfinished album of this stuff on my hard drive I'll get round to one day. haloofthesun.bandcamp.com/album/850ma #metal #heavymetal
I know some sponge people claim that there are sponges back into the Tonian, and that would probably mean ctenophores back then too, so cnidarians wouldn't be a HUGE stretch in the Cryogenian...but I don't think that's what these are.
The vibes seem to be generically algal.
The vibes seem to be generically algal.
June 7, 2025 at 12:43 AM
I know some sponge people claim that there are sponges back into the Tonian, and that would probably mean ctenophores back then too, so cnidarians wouldn't be a HUGE stretch in the Cryogenian...but I don't think that's what these are.
The vibes seem to be generically algal.
The vibes seem to be generically algal.
Reconstruction of marine redox landscape during the Cryogenian interglacial oceans using thallium isotopes - ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reconstruction of marine redox landscape during the Cryogenian interglacial oceans using thallium isotopes
The change in marine redox chemistry between the Cryogenian Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations (ca. 663–654 Ma) is crucial for understanding the potent…
www.sciencedirect.com
May 31, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reconstruction of marine redox landscape during the Cryogenian interglacial oceans using thallium isotopes - ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Open Access UCL Research: Proxy development for local-regional redox conditions with application to Cryogenian carbonate rocks discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...
Proxy development for local-regional redox conditions with application to Cryogenian carbonate rocks
-
UCL Discovery
UCL Discovery is UCL's open access repository, showcasing and providing access to UCL research outputs from all UCL disciplines.
discovery.ucl.ac.uk
May 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Open Access UCL Research: Proxy development for local-regional redox conditions with application to Cryogenian carbonate rocks discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...
It's kind of funny how many Star Wars planets Earth genuinely looked like at various points of its history.
In the Hadean, Earth was basically Mustafar.
In the Cryogenian, Earth was like Hoth.
In the Carboniferous, Earth resembled Dagobah.
1 billion years from now, Earth will look like Jakku.
In the Hadean, Earth was basically Mustafar.
In the Cryogenian, Earth was like Hoth.
In the Carboniferous, Earth resembled Dagobah.
1 billion years from now, Earth will look like Jakku.
April 22, 2025 at 3:57 PM
It's kind of funny how many Star Wars planets Earth genuinely looked like at various points of its history.
In the Hadean, Earth was basically Mustafar.
In the Cryogenian, Earth was like Hoth.
In the Carboniferous, Earth resembled Dagobah.
1 billion years from now, Earth will look like Jakku.
In the Hadean, Earth was basically Mustafar.
In the Cryogenian, Earth was like Hoth.
In the Carboniferous, Earth resembled Dagobah.
1 billion years from now, Earth will look like Jakku.