Ice ‘Lightning’ May Have Helped Life Survive Snowball Earth

Environment





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Between a rock and a hard place. Eddy Hill

The ice sheets and glaciers that extend over roughly 11% of the Earth’s land mass are home to a surprisingly abundant source of life. Sections of liquid water beneath and inside the ice provide a habitat for a genetically diverse variety of microbes. And studying these organisms gives us some clue what life may have looked like if there were indeed periods of the planet’s history when the land was entirely covered in ice for millions of years.