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The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, [1] was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. [2] Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth 's climate by ...
The Pleistocene (/ ˈplaɪstəˌsiːn, - stoʊ -/ PLY-stə-seen, -stoh-; [ 5 ][ 6 ] often referred to colloquially as the Ice Age) 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 ...
The end of the last glacial period, which was about 10,000 years ago, is often called the end of the ice age, although extensive year-round ice persists in Antarctica and Greenland. Over the past few million years, the glacial-interglacial cycles have been "paced" by periodic variations in the Earth's orbit via Milankovitch cycles.
A less severe cold period or ice age is shown during the Jurassic-Cretaceous (150 Ma). 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.
Quaternary glaciation. Extent of maximum glaciation (in black) in the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene. The formation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets equate to a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft) The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial and ...
The geological history of the Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geological time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left ...
Geologic temperature record. The geologic temperature record are changes in Earth 's environment as determined from geologic evidence on multi-million to billion (10 9) year time scales. The study of past temperatures provides an important paleoenvironmental insight because it is a component of the climate and oceanography of the time.
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 ...