The Ice Age

Nothing new from the Ice Age? Far from it! Barely ten years have passed since the first edition of this book was published, but in that time researchers around the world have developed new methods and published their findings in scientific journals. Consequently, ideas about the course of the Ice Age have changed dramatically. The sequence of the individual ice advances, the direction of ice movement and the direction of meltwater drainage are only partially known, but they can be reconstructed. This book offers in-depth information about the state of the investigations.

Ice ages are the periods of the earth's history in which at least one polar region is glaciated or covered by sea ice. Thus, we are currently living in an Ice Age. The present Ice Age is also the period in which humans started to intervene in the shaping of the earth. The results are obvious. Aerial and satellite images can be used to trace the melting of glaciers, but also the decay of the Arctic permafrost,and the clearing of the Brazilian rainforest.

This book is a translation of the original German 2^nd edition Das Eiszeitalter by Juergen Ehlers, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, in 2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and promotes technologies to support the authors.

Quaternary research is in teaching and research the main focus of the Chair of Geomorphology in Bayreuth. Students have often asked me if I could recommend a book that summarizes this very complex field. The very comprehensive work "The Pleistocene" by T. Nilsson is outdated and no longer up to date. Finally, there is now again a lavish and modernly designed book in German, which can be highly recommended to students as well as other geoscientists and interested laymen. The work is very up to date, equipped with numerous color pictures and illustrations, reads well and, above all, reveals the author's anchoring on the international research front. Of course, some Quaternary researchers may wish for more details from special areas of Quaternary research at one point or another. But then the work, which is already extensive in content and pages, would become too voluminous to be useful as an introduction for a broad audience. The work fills a large gap in the scientific book market. It is to be hoped that the book will be widely distributed and that the documented modern state of knowledge can be further maintained in subsequent years through updated new editions. Prof. Dr. Ludwig Zöller, University of Bayreuth

Long overdue: A German-language work on the Ice Age, written in a clear, understandable and entertaining way and richly illustrated, taking into account the most important literature of the last 200 years. A treasure trove of data for students and experts.  Prof. Dr. Klaus Heine, University of Regensburg

A very good book, which shines besides the content qualities also by the excellent illustrations, maps and also striking photos. It is also very good that also non-European glaciation areas are presented and analyzed exemplarily. The effect and shaping of the ice is vividly and memorably presented: this is especially true for the glacial morphological small and micro forms. Through the use of satellite images, the glacially shaped landscapes are impressively presented and explained. Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Fuchs, University of Mainz

Dr. Jürgen Ehlers is a German geoscientist. Together with Prof. Philip L. Gibbard, Cambridge, he has led the project 'Extent and Chronology of Quaternary Glaciations' for the International Union for Quaternary Research, involving 170 scientists from 50 countries. Gibbard and Ehlers are among the best experts on glacial geology and were awarded the Medal of Merit of the German Quaternary Association (DEUQUA). Ehlers is the author of several books on the Quaternary (Enke and Wiley) and on the North Sea (WBG) and is also known as an author of historical crime fiction.