Quaternary

The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS.^[1] It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary includes two geologic epochs: the Pleistocene and the Holocene.

Overview

Research history

The term Quaternary ("fourth") was proposed by Giovanni Arduino in 1759 for alluvial deposits in the Po river valley in northern Italy. It was introduced by Jules Desnoyers in 1829 for sediments of France's Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Tertiary Period and extends to the present. The Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago. Prior to 2009, the Pleistocene was defined to be 1.805 million years ago to present, such that the present definition of the Pleistocene includes a portion of what was prior to 2009 defined as part of the Pliocene.

Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. From the 1970s, the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) tried to make a single geologic time scale based on GSSP's, which could be used internationally. The Quaternary subdivisions were defined based on biostratigraphy instead of paleoclimate. This led to the problem that the proposed base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya, long after the start of the major glaciations of the northern hemisphere. The ICS then proposed to abolish use of the name Quaternary altogether, which appeared unacceptable to the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA). In 2009, it was decided to make the Quaternary the youngest period of the Cenozoic Era with its base at 2.588 Mya and including the Gelasian stage, which was formerly considered part of the Neogene Period and Pliocene Epoch.^[1]

The Earth during the Quaternary

The 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Over this short time period, the total amount of continental drift was less than 100 km, which is largely irrelevant to paleontology. Nonetheless, the geological record is preserved in greater detail than that for earlier periods, and is most relatable to the maps of today, revealing in the second half of the twentieth century its own series of extraordinary landform changes. The major geographical changes during this time period included the emergence of the Strait of Bosphorus and Skagerrak during glacial epochs, which respectively turned the Black Sea and Baltic Sea into fresh water, followed by their flooding (and return to salt water) by rising sea level; the periodic filling of the English Channel, forming a land bridge between Britain and the European mainland; the periodic closing of the Bering Strait, forming the land bridge between Asia and North America; and the periodic flash flooding of Scablands of the American Northwest by glacial water. The Great Lakes and other major lakes of Canada, and Hudson Bay, are also just the results of the last cycle, and are temporary. Following every other ice age within the Quaternary, there was a different pattern of lakes and bays.

The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude. Few major new animals evolved, again presumably because of the short—in geologic terms—duration of the period. There was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, etc., became extinct worldwide. Others, including horses, camels and American cheetahs became extinct in North America.

Quaternary glaciation

Glaciation took place repeatedly during the Quaternary Ice Age – a term coined by Schimper in 1839 that began with the start of the Quaternary about 2.58 Mya and continues to the present-day.

Last glaciation

In 1821, a Swiss engineer, Ignaz Venetz, presented an article in which he suggested the presence of traces of the passage of a glacier at a considerable distance from the Alps. This idea was initially disputed by another Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, but when he undertook to disprove it, he ended up affirming his colleague's hypothesis. A year later, Agassiz raised the hypothesis of a great glacial period that would have had long-reaching general effects. This idea gained him international fame and led to the establishment of the Glacial Theory.

In time, thanks to the refinement of geology, it has been demonstrated that there were several periods of glacial advance and retreat and that past temperatures on Earth were very different from today. In particular, the Milankovitch cycles of Milutin Milankovitch are based on the premise that variations in incoming solar radiation are a fundamental factor controlling Earth's climate.

During this time, substantial glaciers advanced and retreated over much of North America and Europe, parts of South America and Asia, and all of Antarctica. The Great Lakes formed and giant mammals thrived in parts of North America and Eurasia not covered in ice. These mammals became extinct when the last Ice Age ended about 11,700 years ago. Modern humans evolved about 190,000 years ago (source: Leakey). During the Quaternary period, mammals, flowering plants, and insects dominated the land.

References

External links

• Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy
• Global correlation tables for the Quaternary

• Gibbard, P.L., S. Boreham, K.M. Cohen and A. Moscariello, 2005, Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years v. 2005c., PDF version 220 KB. Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England

• Gibbard, P.L., S. Boreham, K.M. Cohen and A. Moscariello, 2007, Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years v. 2007b., jpg version 844 KB. Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England

• Silva, P.G. C. Zazo, T. Bardají, J. Baena, J. Lario y A. Rosas, 2007, Tabla Cronoestratigráfica del Cuaternario aequa., PDF version 1.4 MB. asociación española para el estudio del cuaternario (aequa), Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Alcalá Madrid, Spain. (Corelation chart of European Quaternary and cultural stages and fossils)

• Welcome to the XVIII INQUA-Congress, Bern, 2011