Marinoan glaciation

The Marinoan glaciation was a period of worldwide glaciation that lasted from approximately 650 to 635 Ma (million years ago) during the Cryogenian period. The glaciation may have covered the entire planet, in an event called the Snowball Earth. The end of the glaciation may have been sped by the release of methane from equatorial permafrost.

The name is derived from the stratigraphic terminology of the Adelaide Geosyncline (Adelaide Rift Complex) in South Australia and is taken from the Adelaide suburb of Marino. The term Marinoan Series was first used in a 1950 paper by Douglas Mawson and Reg Sprigg to subdivide the Neoproterozoic rocks of the Adelaide area and encompassed all strata from the top of the Brighton Limestone to the base of the Cambrian. The corresponding time period, referred to as the Marinoan Epoch, spanned from the middle Cryogenian to the top of the Ediacaran in modern terminology. Mawson recognised a glacial episode within the Marinoan Epoch which he referred to as the Elatina glaciation after the 'Elatina Tillite' (now Elatina Formation) where he found the evidence. However, the term Marinoan glaciation came into common usage because it was the glaciation that occurred during the Marinoan Epoch, as distinct from the earlier glaciation during the Sturtian Epoch (the time period of deposition of the older Sturtian Series).

The term Marinoan glaciation was later applied globally to any glaciogenic formations assumed (directly or indirectly) to correlate with Mawson’s original Elatina glaciation in South Australia. Recently, there has been a move to return to the term Elatina glaciation in South Australia because of uncertainties regarding global correlation and because an Ediacaran glacial edisode (Gaskiers) also occurs within the wide ranging Marinoan Epoch.

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