'A part of Earth has gone missing': The shocking truth about how glaciers shredded planet's surface
Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Representative pic
Crust Vanished
For over a century, scientists puzzled over why huge parts of Earth's crust were missing—now, they believe ancient glaciers may have scraped it away during a global freeze.
Ice Destruction
During "Snowball Earth," when ice smothered nearly the whole planet, glaciers may have shredded up to 5 km of rock—leaving behind a mysterious gap in Earth's history.
Erosion Mystery
First spotted in the Grand Canyon in 1869, The Great Unconformity revealed an alarming break in Earth's timeline—where millions of years of rock seemed to just vanish.
Frozen Scars
Scientists now argue glaciers didn't just carve valleys—they erased entire continents' worth of crust, dumping the debris into ancient seas and rewriting Earth's surface.
Missing Miles
New studies reveal up to 200 million cubic miles of Earth's ancient crust may be gone, scoured away by ice sheets thicker than skyscrapers.
Ancient Shredder
Evidence from hafnium and oxygen isotopes hidden in crystals shows the deep scars of pre-Phanerozoic rock torn up and scattered long before life exploded on Earth.
Sea Graveyard
So where did Earth's missing crust go? Researchers now think glaciers flushed these colossal rock masses straight into ancient oceans, burying them forever.
Hidden Evidence
Tiny isotopic fingerprints inside surviving crystals may be the only traces left of Earth's lost continents—clues to a catastrophe bigger than anyone imagined.
Frozen Apocalypse
More than an icy age, "Snowball Earth" may have been a planet-wide rock-scraping apocalypse, erasing the record of a billion years in one glacial sweep.