A major volcanic event could have triggered one of the largest glaciations in Earth’s history—the Gaskiers glaciation, which turned the Earth into a giant snowball approximately 580 million years ago. Researchers from Heidelberg University and colleagues from Mexico have discovered remnants of such a large igneous province that resulted from vast lava flows. At the time, it extended over three continents, which today comprises the Earth’s crust in parts of Mexico, elsewhere in North America, and northern Europe. The basaltic eruptions must have covered an area of at least a thousand kilometres in diameter. The results of the research were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.