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The geologic record indicates that during several multi-million year intervals in Earth’s ancient past, ice sheets at sea-level stabilized at tropical latitudes, suggesting alterations between snowball and greenhouse climate states. By reviewing literature from the initial hypotheses of global glaciation through the most recent advances in understanding of Earth's long term climate history, this course will explore the geologic evidence for extraordinary climate fluctuations, the climate dynamics of these extreme states, and the geochemical and geobiological causes and consequences of the most severe episodes of climate change in Earth history.