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The Great Unconformity
December 24 , 2023
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- Scientists have recently unravelled the mystery of "The Great Unconformity,"
- It is a phenomenon where large sections of the Earth's crust are missing from the geological record.
- This gap most likely emerged from the intense glacial erosion during a period known as "Snowball Earth," when much of the planet was covered in ice.
- The process of glacial erosion, occurring during this ancient time, led to a significant removal of rocks, creating a gap in the sedimentary record.
- This geological oddity was first observed in 1869 at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
- A recent study estimated that an astonishing 3-5 kilometres of rock globally were eroded due to glacial activity.
- It is leaving a billion cubic kilometres of pre-Cambrian material missing from records.
- The more extensive erosion occurred before the Phanerozoic era than previously believed.
- The Phanerozoic is the current and the latest of the four geologic eons in the Earth's geologic time scale.
- It is covering the time period from 538.8 million years ago to the present.
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