The firmament

[Kalimni]

I did a quick search, and didn't find anything pertaining to my question.

Is there any scientific evidence that a firmament may have once encircled the globe? Or if it is physically possible that such a thing could of existed?

Now, by firmament, I am using an interpatation of the passage in genesis referring to God creating the firmament and separating the waters from the waters. It could refer to a layer of water surrounding the upper atmosphere, or possibly just a ring of ice surrounding the planet.

[spidergoat]

We call it- the land.

[Ophiolite]

Is there any scientific evidence that a firmament may have once encircled the globe? Or if it is physically possible that such a thing could of existed?No evidence and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Difficult to know where to direct you without a knowledge of your current background, but google accretion disc and planetary formation as a start.

[Fraggle Rocker]

. . . . or possibly just a ring of ice surrounding the planet.If there were a tremendous decrease in solar energy and the temperature dropped below freezing all over the planet, is there enough water for the glaciers to spread over the entire land mass and meet at the equator? I'll let you do the math and tell us.

I should think that once that happened it would be very difficult to reverse, since ice reflects sunlight and would keep the temperature down and resist melting, even when the sunlight increased.

Next question for any cosmologists here: Has solar radiation been increasing or decreasing over the life of the sun and the planets?

[spidergoat]

It's possible that the Earth's surface was at one point, completely frozen over.

[Fraggle Rocker]

It's possible that the Earth's surface was at one point, completely frozen over.Really? Please elaborate. As I suggested, if the entire surface of the planet were ice, it would have a very high albedo (percentage of light reflected). Reflecting all that sunlight back into space would tend to stabilize the earth at a very low temperature, would it not?

Or... has the amount of solar radiation been steadily increasing over the eons, succeeding in melting the ice? But if that were true, then as the ice melted the newly uncovered land masses would begin to absorb far more radiation than before, and the temperature of the globe would start to skyrocket.

[spidergoat]

Volcanoes could upset the balance.

[Pete]

Snowball Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth)

[Enmos]

Volcanoes could upset the balance.

I thought that the volcanic activity on Earth has been steadily decreasing since it's formation.
Your idea suggests that the Earth at one time was cold enough to be covered completely in ice and that there were no volcanoes around, and then all of a sudden volcanoes appeared..