Frozen Planet: How Life Survived in Ponds of Meltwater During the "Snowball Earth" Era

In ancient times, when the planet was frozen, some of our ancient cellular ancestors could "wait out events," preserving their existence in meltwater bodies. This is reported by UNN, citing the findings of a research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a publication in Nature Communications.

Details

Scientists continue their studies to identify the form and habitat – where exactly life hid during periods known as "Snowball Earth." In this context, attention should be paid to the so-called eukaryotes – complex forms of cellular life that eventually evolved into the diverse multicellular life we see today. These cellular life forms could have survived global freezing by living in shallow puddles of water.

How did these "ponds" form? Scientists explain that the ice surface could accumulate dark dust and debris from below, which enhanced its melting ability. This most likely could have been the "path" that contributed to the formation of water bodies.

Formed at temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius, meltwater bodies could serve as a suitable environment for the existence of certain forms of early complex life.

Some details of life's existence in prehistoric water bodies, according to hypotheses

• small aquatic oases may have persisted on relatively shallow ice sheets located in equatorial regions;
• eukaryote communities differed from pond to pond, revealing surprising biodiversity across the environment;
• salinity played a key role in the type of life that could exist in a pond.

Regarding the last point:
 Scientists suggest that water bodies that were more brackish or saline had more similar eukaryotic communities.
They differed from those found in freshwater ponds.

Fatima Hussein, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT, is confident that based on the new research, scientists have managed to prove the following:

Meltwater bodies are strong candidates for where early eukaryotes could have hidden during these planet-wide glaciations.

This shows us that diversity is present and possible in such conditions, the scientist points out.

This is truly a story of life's resilience.

We remind you

Scientists have discovered an exoplanet that may contain liquid water. This distant planet, named LHS 1140, may even have an Earth-like atmosphere. Ever since humans looked at the stars, we have been fascinated by the search for life beyond Earth.

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