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Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers pp 873–882Cite as

Quaternary Glaciation

Part of the Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series book series (EESS)

Synonyms

Ice age; Last glacial maximum; Pleistocene

Definition

The Quaternary is the youngest Period/System division of the Geological Time Scale and represents 2.6 million years of geological time. It spans the Pleistocene (2.6–0.11 Ma) and Holocene (0.11–0 Ma) Series and includes the present day. It is essentially the “Ice Age” of popular terminology.

The term Last Glacial Maximum or LGM is widely used to refer to the maximum global ice volume during the last glacial cycle corresponding with the trough in the marine isotope record centered on ca. 18 14C Ka BP (Martinson et al., 1987) and the associated global eustatic sea-level low also dated to 18 14C Ka BP (Yokoyama et al., 2000).

Introduction

Since the recognition in the mid-nineteenth century that glaciers had been considerably more extensive than at present, the Quaternary has been synonymous with glaciation of the mid-latitudes. Today evidence from both the land and ocean-floor sediment sequences demonstrates that the major...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geologisches Landesamt, Billstrasse 84, 20539, Hamburg, Germany

    Jürgen Ehlers

  2. Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group, Cambridge Quaternary, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK

    Philip Gibbard

Authors
  1. Jürgen Ehlers
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  2. Philip Gibbard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip Gibbard .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  2. New Delhi, India

    Pratap Singh

  3. University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, USA

    Umesh K. Haritashya

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Ehlers, J., Gibbard, P. (2011). Quaternary Glaciation. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_423

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