The Proterozoic Eon was once regarded as the neglected middle half of Earth history. The name refers to early animals, but they did not appear until the eon (2.5–0.54 Ga) was nearly over. Molecular dioxygen, the presence of which altered the geochemical behavior of nearly every element essential to life, rose from negligible to near-modern levels, and then plummeted before rising fitfully again. Plate tectonics took on a modern form, and two supercontinents, Nuna and Rodinia, successively congregated and later dispersed. Climate regulatory failures, i.e., Snowball Earth, appear to be a uniquely Proterozoic phenomenon, having occurred twice in rapid succession near the end of the eon (from 717 to 660 Ma and from 650 to 635 Ma) and arguably once near its beginning (ca. 2.43 Ga). Dynamic sea glaciers covered Snowball Earth oceans from pole to pole, and equatorial sublimation drove slow-moving ice sheets on land. Ultimately, the gradual accumulation of CO2 triggered rapid deglaciation and transient greenhouse aftermaths. Physically based and geologically tested, Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth appears to have molecular legacies in ancient bitumens and modern organisms. This is the story of my love affair with an eon that is now a little less neglected.
1. Southern area ONTARIO
My very first clean that have research is actually training physicist George Gamow’s (1947) well-known publication One-two-three … Infinity, however, my early character model was Teacher Adversary in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1912) The fresh new Shed Industry. In the event the technology would-be about planning insane locations (Amazonian tepuis), and work out breathtaking findings (lifestyle dinosaurs), and providing well-known lectures (terrorizing pterosaurs), i quickly desired to end up being a scientist.
Terminology
We grew up in (what is now) the downtown area Toronto, which in fact had big-urban area positives-zoos, an art gallery, a museum, botanical landscapes, a substantial observatory, and so on. My mommy, Dorothy Medhurst, is serious, athletic, and you can fascinated. She are a first-college or university artwork teacher, nursery-college management, correspondence-school professor (to have North Ontario people as opposed to local universities), and you can sign painter. Off Scottish-English removal, she is a good Toronto local. Dad, diligent and painstaking, is an industrial color chemist. Because the Samuel Hochbaum, he’d emigrated of Poland into the 1926 at age of 17 and you will is an enthusiastic ardent antitribalist. Each other had been freethinkers unbound by the summit. Neither is a highschool scholar-my father discovered chemistry later in the day 
university, and you may my personal mother coached independently schools-but our home are laden up with instructions. My parents had a piece of end in this new Caledon Slopes, beyond your city. They based a-two-space cottage on it which have a grand glance at with no powering water, stamina, or mobile. We ran around the week-end throughout the year as well as june, when we were not toward hiking vacation. My personal parents considered that kids can be remaining outside, and you may my wanderings forced me to getting just as in the home on nation plus the town.
I remember collecting Ordovician invertebrate fossils and chipping out crystals of blue and orange celestite (SrCO3) from vugs in Devonian dolomite. I compared them with specimens from around the world at the Royal Ontario Museum, where, as a 9-year-old, I attended my first geology class on Saturday mornings from paleontologist Madeleine Fritz (1896–1990). I went on many mineral-collecting field trips led by the museum’s curatorial staff. As a teenager, I escaped being labeled an oddball by being good at sports. My parents admonished my three younger siblings and me to pursue any activity we pleased, so long as we did it with real intent. My sister became a four-time Olympian, provincial human rights commissioner, and senior administrator in Health Canada. The older of my brothers became a steel worker after playing junior hockey alongside future NHL great Bobby Orr. My younger brother became a retailer and distributor of popular recorded music nationwide. My parents, who identified with the romance of the far North, were thrilled when my growing obsession with rocks and minerals looked to become a profession.