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The Pleistocene is the geological epoch that lasted from c. 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek πλεῖστος (pleîstos), meaning "most", and καινός, meaning "new".
The Last Glacial Period (LGP), also known colloquially as the Last Ice Age or simply Ice Age, occurred from the end of the Eemian to the end of the Younger Dryas, encompassing the period c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago.
There have been five or six major ice ages in the history of Earth over the past 3 billion years. The Late Cenozoic Ice Age began 34 million years ago, its latest phase being the Quaternary glaciation, in progress since 2.58 million years ago.
The Würm glaciation or Würm stage, usually referred to in the literature as the Würm, was the last glacial period in the Alpine region. It is the youngest of the major glaciations of the region that extended beyond the Alps themselves. Like most of the other ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch, it is named after a river, in this case the Würm in Bavaria, a tributary of the Amper.
The Anglian Stage is the name used in the British Isles for a middle Pleistocene glaciation. It precedes the Hoxnian Stage and follows the Cromerian Stage in the British Isles. The Anglian Stage is correlated to Marine Isotope Stage 12, which started about 478,000 years ago and ended about 424,000 years ago.
The Hoxnian Stage was a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of the British Isles. It was an interglacial which preceded the Wolstonian Stage and followed the Anglian Stage. It is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 11. Marine Isotope Stage 11 started 424,000 years ago and ended 374,000 years ago. The Hoxnian is divided into sub-stages Ho I to Ho IV.
The Wolstonian Stage is a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of Earth from approximately 374,000 until 130,000 years ago. It precedes the Eemian Stage in Europe and follows the Hoxnian Stage in the British Isles.
The Illinoian Stage is the name used by Quaternary geologists in North America to designate the period c.191,000 to c.130,000 years ago, during the Chibanian stage of the Pleistocene, when sediments comprising the Illinoian Glacial Lobe were deposited. It precedes the Sangamonian Stage and follows the Pre-Illinoian Stage in North America. The Illinoian Stage is defined as the period of geologic time during which the glacial tills and outwash, which comprise the bulk of the Glasford Formation, accumulated to create the Illinoian Glacial Lobe. It occurs at about the same time as the penultimate glacial period.
The Yarmouthian stage and the Yarmouth Interglacial were part of a now obsolete geologic timescale of the early Quaternary of North America.
The Elster glaciation or, less commonly, the Elsterian glaciation, in the older and popular scientific literature also called the Elster Ice Age (Elster-Eiszeit), is the oldest known ice age that resulted in the large-scale glaciation of North Germany. It took place 500,000–300,000 years ago. It succeeded a long period of rather warmer average temperatures, the Cromerian Complex. The Elster was followed by the Holstein interglacial and the Saale glaciation. The glacial period is named after the White Elster, a right tributary of the Saale.
The Beestonian Stage is an early Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles. It is named after Beeston Cliffs near West Runton in Norfolk where deposits from this stage are preserved.
The Pastonian interglacial, now called the Pastonian Stage, is the name for an early or middle Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles. It precedes the Beestonian Stage and follows the Pre-Pastonian Stage. Unfortunately the precise age of this stage cannot yet be defined in terms of absolute dating or MIS stages. The Pre-Pastonian Stage is equivalent to the Tiglian C5-6 Stage of Europe and the Pre-Illinoian I glaciation of the early Pre-Illinoian Stage of North America.
The Bramertonian Stage is the name for an early Pleistocene biostratigraphic stage in the British Isles. It precedes the Pre-Pastonian Stage. It derives its name from Bramerton Pits in Norfolk, where the deposits can be found on the surface. The exact timing of the beginning and end of the Bramertonian Stage is currently unknown. It is only known that it is equivalent to the Tiglian C1-4b Stage of Europe and early Pre-Illinoian Stage of North America. It lies somewhere in time between Marine Oxygen Isotope stages 65 to 95 and somewhere between 1.816 and 2.427 Ma. The Bramertonian is correlated with the Antian stage identified from pollen assemblages in the Ludham borehole.
Stadials and interstadials are phases dividing the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. Stadials are periods of colder climate, and interstadials are periods of warmer climate.
Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods, while the odd-numbered stages are lows in the oxygen-18 figures, representing warm interglacial intervals. The data are derived from pollen and foraminifera (plankton) remains in drilled marine sediment cores, sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate; these are called proxies.
An interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial began at the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,700 years ago.
The Pre-Illinoian Stage is used by Quaternary geologists for the early and middle Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods of geologic time in North America from ~2.5–0.2 Ma.
The Norwich Crag Formation is a stratigraphic unit of the British Pleistocene Epoch. It is the second youngest unit of the Crag Group, a sequence of four geological formations spanning the Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene transition in East Anglia. It was deposited between approximately 2.4 and 1.8 million years ago, during the Gelasian Stage.
The Ludham Borehole was a geological research borehole drilled in 1959 near Ludham, Norfolk, UK. A continuous core sample of late Pliocene and early Pleistocene sediments of the Crag Group was recovered. Analysis allowed biostratigraphic zonal schemes for fossil pollen, foraminifera, mollusca and dinoflagellates to be constructed for horizons of the Red Crag and Norwich Crag Formations, and for these formations to be thus correlated with strata of equivalent age in the North Sea basin and north-west Europe.
The Tiglian, also referred to as the Tegelen, is a temperate complex stage in the glacial history of Northern Europe. It is preceded by the Praetiglian (stage). The stage was introduced by Zagwijn in 1957 based on geological formations in Tegelen in southern Netherlands. Originally, it was thought to be part of a sequence of glacials and interglacials, namely Praetiglian (cold), Tiglian (warm), Eburonian (cold), Waalian (warm), Menapian (cold), and Bavelian (warm).
References
- ↑ Zagwijn, W.H., 1960. Aspects of the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene vegetation in the Netherlands. Mededelingen Geologische Stichting, Serie C-III-l, 5: 178 pp.
- 1 2 "Waalian Stage". British Geological Survey. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- ↑ "Waalian". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- ↑ "Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years v. 2020b". International Commission on Stratigraphy. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- 1 2 Zagwijn, Waldo H. (1992-01-01). "The beginning of the Ice Age in Europe and its major subdivisions". Quaternary Science Reviews. 11 (5): 583–591. Bibcode:1992QSRv...11..583Z. doi:10.1016/0277-3791(92)90015-Z. ISSN 0277-3791.
- 1 2 West, R. G. (1962-01-09). "Vegetational history of the Early Pleistocene of the Royal Society Borehole at Ludham, Norfolk". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences. 155 (960): 437–453. Bibcode:1962RSPSB.155..437W. doi:10.1098/rspb.1962.0011. ISSN 0080-4649. S2CID 128467486.
- ↑ Zagwijn, W.H (1957). "Vegetation, climate and time-correlations in the Early Pleistocene of Europe". Oeol. En Mijnb. N.S. (19): 233–244.
- 1 2 Hahne, Jürgen; Ellwanger, Dietrich; Stritzke, Rüdiger (2009-04-01). "Evidence for a Waalian thermomer pollen record from the research borehole Heidelberg UniNord, Upper Rhine Graben, Baden-Württemberg". E&G Quaternary Science Journal. 57 (3/4): 403–410. doi: 10.3285/eg.57.3-4.7 . hdl: 11858/00-1735-0000-0001-B9E6-4 . ISSN 2199-9090.
