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Knowledge of precise climatic events decreases as the record goes further back in time. The timeline of glaciation covers ice ages specifically, which tend to have their own names for phases, often with different names used for different parts of the world. The names for earlier periods and events come from geology and paleontology.
Within ice ages, there exist periods of more severe glacial conditions and more temperate conditions, referred to as glacial periods and interglacial periods, respectively. The Earth is currently in such an interglacial period of the Quaternary glaciation, with the Last Glacial Period of the Quaternary having ended approximately 11,700 years ago.
The stage names are part of the North American and the European Alpine subdivisions. The correlation between both subdivisions is tentative. Within the Quaternary, which started about 2.6 million years before present, there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. [5] At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 ...
An illustration of ice age Earth at its glacial maximum. A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet. [6] Additionally, the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (such as water vapor and methane) are high, and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) range from 28 °C (82.4 °F) in the tropics to 0 °C (32 °F) in the polar regions. [7]
Initially the glacial/interglacial cycle length was about 41,000 years, but following the Mid-Pleistocene Transition about 1 Ma, it slowed to about 100,000 years, as evidenced most clearly by ice cores for the past 800,000 years and marine sediment cores for the earlier period. Over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. [7]
Graph showing glacial cycles in Europe from 600-100,000 years ago, with the Saalian period labelled Aurochs skull from the Saale complex of Ilford, UK. The Saalian succeeded the Holstein interglacial and was followed by the Eemian interglacial (which began around 130,000 years ago) [1] Though the start date of the Saalian was historically controversial, recent scholarship has suggested that ...
Approximate extent of the Karoo Glaciation (in blue), over the Gondwana supercontinent during the Carboniferous and Permian periods. The late Paleozoic icehouse, also known as the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) and formerly known as the Karoo ice age, was an ice age that began in the Late Devonian and ended in the Late Permian, [1] occurring from 360 to 255 million years ago (Mya), [2] [3] and ...
The colder last part from around 194,000 years ago is called the Penultimate Glacial Period. It is equivalent to Marine isotope stages (MIS) 10 through 6. MIS 10, 8 and 6 were glacial periods and 9 and 7 were interglacials. It is named after Wolston in the English county of Warwickshire.