Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - How The Ice Giants Created Complex Life In The Oceans

Glacial grooves stemming from the Wisconsin glaciation at Kelleys Island, Ohio

Giant ice bulldozers: how ancient glaciers helped life evolve - News at Curtin | Curtin University, Perth, Australia

It's generally recognised that complex, multicellular life began in the oceans from colonies of single-celled organisms, but what isn't known is what environmental triggers promoted the evolution of this complexity.

Now researchers from Curtin University, Perth, Australia, in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth and St. Francis Xavier University, Canada, believe they have shown a correlation between this event, or series of events and the melting of vast ice sheets which covered Earth in a period known as snowball Earth. The trigger was not so much the melt-water and rise in sea levels as the minerals this melt-water brought with it. This sudden abundance of minerals was the result of the slow grinding of Earth's surface by giant glaciers as they gouged their way across the planet.

What was the role of the 'Ice Giants' in Norse mythology? In Norse mythology, the jötnar (often translated as "giants" or "Ice Giants") played a fundamental role as both primordial beings and persistent adversaries to the gods of Asgard. While not all jötnar were associated with ice, many were linked to chaotic, untamed forces of nature.

Origins and Cosmic Role

The first being in Norse mythology, Ymir, was a primordial jötunn who emerged from the meeting of fire and ice in Ginnungagap. He was the ancestor of all giants.
The gods Odin, Vili, and Vé killed Ymir and used his body to create the world—his flesh became the land, his blood the seas, his bones the mountains, and his skull the sky.
Enemies of the Gods

The jötnar often clashed with the Æsir (the gods), particularly Thor, who frequently battled them.
Despite being adversaries, there was also intermarriage and interaction between gods and giants. For example, Loki was of jötunn descent, and Odin had a giantess mother.
Ice and Chaos

Some jötnar were associated with the cold and frost, particularly the hrímþursar (Frost Giants), who personified the harsh, chaotic forces of winter.
They represented natural destruction and the wild, unpredictable elements that opposed order and civilization.
Role in Ragnarok

Giants were prophesied to play a major role in Ragnarok, the end of the world. Led by Surtr (a fire giant), they would storm Asgard and fight the gods, leading to widespread destruction and rebirth.

Overall, the jötnar embodied both chaos and creation, serving as the primordial forces against which the gods struggled to maintain order in the Norse cosmos.

Approximately when did these myths originate?

The myths of the jötnar and Norse cosmology likely originated in the pre-Viking and early Viking Age, evolving over centuries through oral tradition before being written down in the medieval period. Here’s a rough timeline of their development:

Prehistoric and Proto-Germanic Roots (Before 500 CE)

The origins of Norse mythology can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic beliefs.
Early Germanic tribes likely had myths of chaotic primordial beings and gods in conflict with monstrous foes, which later influenced the Norse jötnar myths.
Migration Period (300–700 CE)

Germanic myths began taking more structured forms as tribal societies interacted and merged.
Elements of Norse cosmology, such as Ymir’s creation story, may have begun forming during this period.
Viking Age (c. 800–1100 CE)

The mythology flourished orally among Norse and Scandinavian societies, shaping the warrior ethos and religious practices.
The jötnar were key figures in these myths, representing chaos, nature, and the forces beyond human control.
Medieval Christianization and Written Records (12th–13th Century CE)

The Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, preserved much of the mythology, though likely with some Christian reinterpretation.
Other sagas and skaldic poetry also contain remnants of earlier myths.

Thus, while Norse mythology, including the jötnar, likely took shape in its recognizable form around 500–1000 CE, its roots extend far deeper into prehistoric Germanic traditions.

Incidentally, the AI panel on the right tells the Norse creation myth where these ice giants participated in creating order out of chaos. A Norse apologist would probably cite this scientific finding as evidence that the Norse creation myth is the truth in an allegorical form.

A Christian fundamentalist will dismiss this apologetic as ridiculous; obviously made up by people who knew no better and believed only because children were told by adults that it is true - without realising that the same argument applies equally to their own creation myths, even when presented as allegories.

The Curtin team have just published their findings open access in PDF form in the journal Geology and explain it in a Curtin University news release:

Giant ice bulldozers: how ancient glaciers helped life evolve
New Curtin University research has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, reshaping Earth’s surface and paving the way for complex life to flourish.

By chemically analysing crystals in ancient rocks, the researchers discovered that as glaciers carved through the landscape, they scraped deep into the Earth’s crust, releasing key minerals that altered ocean chemistry.
This process had a profound impact on our planet’s composition, creating conditions that allowed complex life to evolve.

Lead author Professor Chris Kirkland from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s Frontier Institute for Geoscience Solutions said the study provides valuable insights into how Earth’s natural systems are deeply interconnected.

When these giant ice sheets melted, they triggered enormous floods that flushed minerals and their chemicals, including uranium, into the oceans. This influx of elements changed ocean chemistry, at a time when more complex life was starting to evolve.

This study highlights how Earth’s land, oceans, atmosphere and climate are intimately connected- where even ancient glacial activity set off chemical chain reactions that reshaped the planet.

Professor C.L. Kirkland, lead author

Timescales of Mineral Systems Group
School of Earth & Planetary Science
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

[Professor Kirtland] said the study also offered a new perspective on modern climate change, showing how past shifts in Earth’s climate triggered large-scale environmental transformations.
This research is a stark reminder that while Earth itself will endure, the conditions that make it habitable can change dramatically. These ancient climate shifts demonstrate that environmental changes, whether natural or human-driven, have profound and lasting impacts.

Understanding these past events can help us better predict how today’s climate changes might reshape our world.

Professor C.L. Kirkland.

The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth and St. Francis Xavier University, Canada.
The full study, titled ‘The Neoproterozoic Glacial Broom,’ will be published in Geology (https://doi.org/10.1130/G52887.1).

Abstract
Neoproterozoic snowball Earth events reflect globally frigid conditions thought to have stimulated changes in geochemical cycling with planetary biotic response. We investigated the impact of these events on sediment dynamics, focusing on the detrital zircon record within the Dalradian Supergroup of Scotland and Ireland. Utilizing U-Pb detrital zircon ages, we analyzed changes in sediment provenance throughout the stratigraphy via bootstrapped variance metrics. The coefficient of variance for the detrital zircon load exhibits a first-order increase stratigraphically upward, with marked changes at glaciogenic layers. Points of increased variance align with inputs of older detritus compared to lower, preglacial stratigraphic levels, suggesting intensified erosion and downcutting linked to wet-based glacial activity, with postglacial sediment redistribution. Average detrital zircon apparent density also changes through the stratigraphy, with implications for uranium cycling from the continents into the oceans. While early Ediacaran shale geochemistry implies postglacial oceanic oxygenation, loss of proportionally more uranium-rich detrital zircon across glaciogenic layers suggests that modification to continental weathering also fundamentally contributed to Neoproterozoic geochemical shifts.

INTRODUCTION
The cause(s) of Neoproterozoic snowball Earth glacial events is (are) controversial, and a range of possible extraterrestrial, geodynamic, oceanographic, and biotic drivers has been invoked, some of which might be interrelated through various feedback mechanisms (e.g., Kirschvink, 1992; Hoffman et al., 1998; Evans, 2000; Hoffman and Schrag, 2002; Fairchild and Kennedy, 2007; Evans and Raub, 2011; Sahoo et al., 2012; Li et al., 2013; Hoffman et al., 2017). Increasing volumes of data support the linkage of coeval breakup of the equatorial supercontinent Rodinia and the development of large igneous provinces above mantle plumes with the onset of snowball Earth glacial events. It is envisaged that snowball events were triggered by basaltic volcanism, regional uplift, and increased precipitation, followed by a significant increase in tropical continental weathering, drawdown of atmospheric CO2 , and a consequent global reduction in temperatures (Goddéris et al., 2003; Donnadieu et al., 2004; Macdonald and Wordsworth, 2017.1; Dufour et al., 2023). Tropical weathering of extensive areas of subaerial basalts could also have resulted in an increased flux of phosphorus from the land to sea, thus promoting oceanic primary production and further drawing down atmospheric CO2 , leading to a greater reduction in temperatures (Horton, 2015). The hypothesized widespread glacial erosion of continental interiors should be reflected in the changing provenance characteristics of sediment delivered into circumRodinia basins. Here, we tested this hypothesis by evaluating the diversity in age of detrital zircons through three sequences that preserve glaciogenic strata within the Neoproterozoic Dalradian Supergroup of Scotland and Ireland (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. (A) Reconstruction of eastern Laurentia (La) and Baltica (Ba) during the Cryogenian period. Red arrows indicate likely sediment supply. NWI—northwest Ireland; I/J—Islay and Jura; CH—Central Highlands, corresponding to stratigraphic columns in Figure 2. (B) Overview map depicting sample areas within Dalradian Supergroup stratigraphy of northern Britain and Ireland. Red boxes and line denote sample regions. Labels: CH—Central Highlands; SUF—Southern Uplands fault; HBF—Highland Boundary fault; GGF—Great Glen fault; MTZ—Moine thrust zone; IS—Iapetus suture; PAT—Port Askaig tillite. (C) Sample location map of Islay. (D) Sample location map of the northern part of Ireland.

So, between 850 million and 600 million years ago, the relatively sudden presence of lots of minerals resulting from glacial erosion of rocks, and a rise in atmospheric temperature, was probably the trigger for the evolution of multicellularity from the single celled organisms that had dominated the planet for the previous 3 billion years or more.

This illustrates how environmental change can have a major impact on life as it evolves to accommodate that change and exploit new niches and opportunities it opens up. The tragedy is that primitive superstitions with preposterous tales of magic creation ex nihilo and species without ancestors, and the terror of the consequences of even questioning those myths and learning the real truth, prevents creationists from appreciating their own history and the delicacy of the planet they live on as their only home in th cosmos.

The strange thing is that they will readily dismiss other, equally preposterous creation myths, such as ice giant doing battle with gods, as too ridiculous for any sane person to believe.

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