Earth underwent a massive, rapid melting period after the last global ice age, new study suggests

At the end of the last global ice age, the deep-frozen Earth reached a built-in limit of climate change and thawed into a slushy planet. Results from a Virginia Tech-led study provide the first direct geochemical evidence of the slushy planet—otherwise known as the "plumeworld ocean" era—when sky-high carbon dioxide levels forced the frozen Earth into a massive, rapid melting period.