The Gaskiers glaciation is a period of widespread glacial deposits (e.g. diamictites) that lasted under 340,000 years, between 579.88 ± 0.44 and 579.63 ± 0.15 million years ago[1] — i.e. late in the Ediacaran Period — making it the last major glacial event of the Precambrian.
[2] It was also the last and the shortest of at least three major ice ages in the Neoproterozoic era.
The 300-metre-thick (984 ft) name-bearing section at Gaskiers (Newfoundland) is packed full of striated dropstones.
[1] The bed lies just below some of the oldest fossils of the Ediacaran biota, leading to early suggestions that the passing of the glaciation and the subsequent sharp rise in the ocean oxygen levels may have paved the way for the evolution of these odd organisms.
[4] More accurate dating methods have shown that there is a 9-million-year gap between the diamictites and the 570 Ma macrofossils.