SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
First Land Plants May Have Caused a Series of Ice Ages
from the Guardian (UK)
The first plants to take root on dry land may have cooled the Earth enough to bring on a
series of ice ages, scientists claim. As plants spread across the continents, they extracted
minerals from the rocks they clung to and drew down levels of atmospheric carbon, causing
temperatures to drop markedly, the researchers say.
The scenario explains puzzling glaciations that saw ice sheets advance in the Ordovician
period between 488m and 444m years ago. At the time, Earth's continents were clustered over the
South Pole and stretched as far north as the equator.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Timothy Lenton at Exeter
University describes experiments to investigate the environmental impact of Earth's first land
plants. They took rocks and covered some with moss to mimic the simple plant life that thrived in
the Ordovician, then incubated them for three months.
Read more...
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