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The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.580 million (±0.005) to 11,700 years BP [10] with the end date expressed in radiocarbon years as 10,000 carbon-14 years BP. [11] It covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9700 BCE ...
Last Glacial Period, not to be confused with the Last Glacial Maximum or Late Glacial Maximum below. (The following events also fall into this period.) 48,000–28,000: Mousterian Pluvial wet in North Africa 26,500–19,000: Last Glacial Maximum, what is often meant in popular usage by "Last Ice Age" 16,000–13,000
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between c. 129,000 and c ...
Sand dunes were much more widespread and active in many areas during the early Quaternary period. A good example is the Sand Hills region in Nebraska which covers an area of about 60,000 km 2 (23,166 sq mi). [40] This region was a large, active dune field during the Pleistocene epoch but today is largely stabilized by grass cover. [41] [42]
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 current interglacial is known as the Holocene epoch. [1] Based on climate proxies, paleoclimatologists study the different climate states originating from glaciation.
The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present. The Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial time-period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago .
Matching the stages to named periods proceeds as new dates are discovered and new regions are explored geologically. The marine isotopic records appear more complete and detailed than any terrestrial equivalents, and have enabled a timeline of glaciation for the Plio-Pleistocene to be identified. [6]
c. 2.58 Ma – start of the Pleistocene epoch, the Stone Age and the current Quaternary Period; emergence of the genus Homo. Smilodon, the best known of the sabre-toothed cats, appears. c. 2.4 Ma – The Amazon River takes its present shape in South America. c. 2.0–1.5 Ma – The basin of the Congo River acquires its present shape.