Quaternary glaciation, also known as the
Pleistocene glaciation, the
current ice age or simply the
ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years (2.58
Ma to present) in which permanent
ice sheets were established in
Antarctica and perhaps
Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere (for example, the
Laurentide ice sheet). The major effects of the ice age were
erosion and
deposition of material over large parts of the continents, modification of
river systems, creation of millions of
lakes, changes in
sea level, development of
pluvial lakes far from the ice margins,
isostatic adjustment of the
crust, and abnormal winds. It affected oceans,
flooding, and biological communities. The ice sheets themselves, by modifying the
albedo, constituted a major feedback on the
climate.
During the Quaternary Period, the total volume of land ice, sea level, and global temperature has fluctuated initially on 41,000- and more recently on 100,000-year time scales, as evidenced most clearly by ice cores for the past 800,000 years and marine sediment cores for the earlier period. There have been approximately 80 glacial cycles over this time. All of this time is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet—Antarctica—has existed continuously. There is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was present during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes—referred to as glacial periods—large ice sheets also existed in Europe, North America, and Siberia. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials.
Currently, the earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the world's land surface, still exist in Greenland and Antarctica. Global warming has exacerbated the retreat of these glaciers.
During the glacial periods, what we see as the normal (i.e. interglacial) hydrologic system was completely interrupted throughout large areas of the world and was considerably modified in others. Due to the volume of ice on land, sea level is approximately 120 meters lower than present. The evidence of such an event in the recent past is robust. Over the last century, extensive field observations have provided evidence that continental glaciers covered large parts of Europe, North America, and Siberia. Maps of glacial features were compiled after many years of fieldwork by hundreds of geologists who mapped the location and orientation of drumlins, eskers, moraines, striations, and glacial stream channels. These maps revealed the extent of the ice sheets, the direction of flow, and the locations of systems of meltwater channels, and they allowed scientists to decipher a history of multiple advances and retreats of the ice. Even before the theory of worldwide glaciation was generally accepted, many observers recognized that more than a single advance and retreat of the ice had occurred. Extensive evidence now shows that a number of periods of growth and retreat of continental glaciers occurred during the ice age, called glacials and interglacials. The interglacial periods of warm climate are represented by buried soil profiles, peat beds, and lake and stream deposits separating the unsorted, unstratified deposits of glacial debris.
