The snowball Earth hypothesis predicts that low-latitude glaciation lasted millions of years while CO 2 built up to critical levels to culminate in catastrophic deglaciation in a supergreenhouse climate. The Gaskiers Formation of eastern Newfoundland (Canada) has been attributed to a snowball glaciation event, but the lack of robust paleomagnetic data and precise geochronological constraints has precluded tests of the hypothesis. Here we present high-precision U-Pb zircon geochronology (chemical abrasion-isotope dilution-thermal ionization mass spectrometry) from eight tuffs from multiple distant stratigraphic sections that bracket glacial diamictites and the first appearance of large Ediacaran fossils. Including internal error, deposition of the Gaskiers diamictite on the Avalon Peninsula is constrained to have been between 580.90 ± 0.40 and 579.88 ± 0.44 Ma, and the Trinity diamictite on Bonavista Peninsula was deposited between 579.63 ± 0.15 and 579.24 ± 0.17 Ma. Assuming approximately synchronous deglaciation, these results imply a maximum duration for deposition of the Trinity diamictite of ≤340 k.y.; this is inconsistent with the multimillion year duration predicted by the snowball Earth hypothesis. Our geochronologic data also constrain the first appearance datum of Ediacaran fossils to <9.5 m.y. after the Gaskiers glaciation. Thus, despite existing paleomagnetic constraints that indicate that marine ice sheets extended to low to middle latitudes, it appears that Earth narrowly escaped a third Neoproterozoic snowball glaciation just prior to the late Ediacaran expansion of metazoan ecosystems.

Ordovician strata of the Mohawk Valley and Taconic allochthon of New York and the Humber margin of Newfoundland record multiple magmatic and basin-forming episodes associated with the Taconic orogeny. Here we present new U-Pb zircon geochronology and whole rock geochemistry and neodymium isotopes from Early Paleozoic volcanic ashes and siliciclastic units on the northern Appalachian margin of Laurentia. Volcanic ashes in the Table Point Formation of Newfoundland and the Indian River Formation of the Taconic allochthon in New York yield dates between 466.16 ؎ 0.12 and 464.20 ؎ 0.13 Ma. Red, bioturbated slate of the Indian River Formation record a shift to more juvenile neodymium isotope values suggesting sedimentary contributions from the Taconic arc-system by 466 Ma. Eight ashes within the Trenton Group in the Mohawk Valley were dated between 452.63 ؎ 0.06 and 450.68 ؎ 0.12 Ma. These ashes contain zircon with Late Ordovician magmatic rims and 1.4 to 1.0 Ga xenocrystic cores that were inherited from Grenville basement, suggesting that the parent magmas erupted through the Laurentian margin. The new geochronological and geochemical data are integrated with a subsidence model and data from the hinterland to refine the tectonic model of the Taconic orogeny. Closure of the Iapetus Ocean by 475 Ma via collision of the peri-Gondwanan Moretown terrane with hyperextended distal fragments of the Laurentian margin is not clearly manifested on the autochthon or the Taconic allochthon other than an increase in sediment accumulation. Pro-foreland basins formed during the Middle Ordovician when these terranes were obducted onto the Laurentian margin. 466 to 464 Ma ashes on the Laurentian margin coincide with a late pulse of magmatism in both the Notre Dame arc in Newfoundland and the Shelburne Falls arc of New England that is potentially related to break-off of an east-dipping slab. Following slab reversal, by 455 Ma, the Bronson Hill arc was established on the new composite Laurentian margin. Thus, we conclude that Late Ordovician strata in the Mohawk Valley and Taconic allochthon of New York and on the Humber margin of Newfoundland were deposited in retro-foreland basins.

We present chemostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and geochronology from a succession that spans the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary in Sonora, Mexico. A sandy hematite-rich dolostone bed, which occurs 20 m above carbonates that record the nadir of the basal Cambrian carbon isotope excursion within the La Ciénega Formation, yielded a maximum depositional age of 539.40 ± 0.23 Ma using U-Pb chemical abrasion–isotope dilution–thermal ionization mass spectrometry on a population of sharply faceted volcanic zircon crystals. This bed, interpreted to contain reworked tuffaceous material, is above the last occurrences of late Ediacaran body fossils and below the first occurrence of the Cambrian trace fossil Treptichnus pedum, and so the age calibrates key markers of the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary. The temporal coincidence of rift-related flood basalt volcanism in southern Laurentia (&gt;250,000 km3 of basalt), a negative carbon isotope excursion, and biological turnover is consistent with a mechanistic link between the eruption of a large igneous province and end-Ediacaran extinction.