A group from Caltech that originated the Snowball Earth theory has proposed a new theory on why the earliest and worst snowball event occurred. Their theory is that it was due to a type of bacteria that produced oxygen, destroying gases that kept the Earth warm. More news is available at Physorg. Caltech graduate student Robert Kopp and his supervising professor, Joe Kirschvink, along with alumnus Isaac Hilburn and graduate student Cody Nash, argue that cyanobacteria (or blue-green algae) suddenly evolved the ability to break water and release oxygen about 2.3 billion years ago. Oxygen destroyed the greenhouse gas methane that was then abundant in the atmosphere, throwing the global climate completely out of kilter.
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