The last ice age was part of the geological time period known as the Pleistocene epoch. The Pleistocene era began about 2.6 million years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago, according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, modern humans spread across most of Earth before the period ended. Many of the ice age giants, such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene in a major extinction event.
The Pliocene was preceded by the Holocene, which is part of a larger time period called the Quaternary period, which is 2.6 million years ago to present. The Latin word for "most" is the same as the Greek word "pleistos", which means "most" in Greek.
Will the restoration of ice age steppe work?
Live Science previously reported that scientists are still learning about how ice ages occur, but they know that they are driven by a number of factors. The shape of Earth's circle varies on a 96,000-year cycle, and it is cooler when Jupiter pulls it closer to the sun.
Over the past 50 million years, Earth has been cooling. The Isthmus of Panama land bridge formed between North America and South America about 4.5 million years ago. Warm water northward and increased precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere were caused by the inability of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to exchange tropical water. The snowfall created glaciers and ice sheets, which caused the Earth to cool, according to the Climate.gov website.
The glaciers retreated during warmer periods, called interglacials. The Gelasian and Calabrian are two of the four stages that were identified within the Pleistocene epoch.
Ice age glaciers mostly retreated and melted away as the planet warmed, but some have stood the test of time. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula may have been there earlier.
The Last Ice Area may not survive climate change.
During the Last Glacial Maximum, glaciers covered vast swathes of North America, Europe, South America and Asia. A study published in the journal Nature shows that global temperatures were 11 degrees lower than they are today.
Ice age conditions were cooler than they are today. Because most of the water on Earth was ice, there was little precipitation. According to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the sea level was lower and the shorelines were farther out due to the trapped water in ice sheets.
Large mammals called megafauna were present in the last ice age. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, giant ground sloths and mastodons lived in North America during this period. It was not just giant mammals. Live Science previously reported that a flightless bird that weighed almost as much as a polar bear inhabited Europe. According to the Australian Museum in Sydney, Megalania prisca, the largest known lizard, lived in open forests, woodlands and other habitats across much of eastern Australia.
Many of the animals of the past are extinct, but most of the wildlife is familiar to humans today. The National Park Service says that there were the same brown bears and wolves in Alaska as there are today. In Western Australia, the remains of an ancient campfire have been found, which are thought to have been used for a 20,000-year-old kangaroo feast. The extinction of nonavian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period was 60 million years ago.
There is a giant 40,000-year-old wolf discovered in Russia.
The megafauna went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. In North America, about 38 groups of mammals disappeared, and most of them were over 99 pounds, according to a 2020 study. Mastodons, saber-toothed cats and most mammoths were among the extinction casualties.
The cause of the extinctions has been debated for decades. According to the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma, the main argument is that either natural climate change or human activity drove the extinctions. The explosion of a comet as it entered the atmosphere led to forest fires in North America and climate change which played a major role in the extinctions.
The planet was warming as it left the last ice age about 11,700 years ago. The glaciers retreated, and humans started farming at the dawn of a new era called the Holocene epoch.
The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum has some finds from the past. To learn about attempts to resurrect a Pleistocene environment and bring back mammoths from extinction to combat climate change, watch this short video by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age is a detailed look at the megafauna of the Ice Age.
The Australian Museum has an exhibit on Megalania prisca.
The International Commission on stratigraphy has a chart of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart.
Collins English Dictionary has a definition of Pleistocene.
The University of California Museum of Paleontology has a book by David Polly.
The Florida Museum of Natural History has a collection of fossils.
The Aboriginal people held a kangaroo feast around a campfire 20,000 years ago.
Why do ice ages happen? Megan Gannon is a researcher at Live Science.
The extinction of North America's Ice Age megafauna was covered in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Michon Scott, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate.gov, "What's the coldest the Earth's ever been?"
"Extinct 11-Foot Super-Ostrich" was as big as a polar bear, according to Live Science.
The American Museum of Natural History has a research onlio-pleistocene.
The National Park Service has an article titled "Pleistocene Megafauna in Beringia".
The Sam Noble Museum is located at the University of Oklahoma.
Climate sensitivity and glacier cooling are reexamined in Nature.
Are today's glaciers leftovers from the last ice age?
Ben contributed to the article.
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