The global glaciations of the Neoproterozoic that reached low latitudes – the so-called ‘Snowball Earth’ events have dominated accounts of ancient glaciations since the start of the 21^st century. Yet they are not the oldest examples of large-scale effects of continental ice sheets. Distinctive tillites or diamictites that contain large clasts of diverse, exotic rocks occur in sedimentary sequences of Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic age.

This item can be read in full at Earth-logs in the Palaeoclimatology archive for 2013