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The Eden Valley in Cumbria, UK during the Pleistocene period

Pleistocene epoch

During the Pleistocene, glaciers came and went, resulting in a series of ice ages punctuated by warmer periods. There were at least 20 cycles of this advance and retreat. During the ice ages, global temperatures were 5 degrees centigrade cooler than today and it was much drier, since much of the world's water was locked up in massive ice sheets. The expansion of the deserts and the action of glaciers grinding up rocks meant that dust storms would have been a lot more common in the Pleistocene than they are now. Our species evolved during this epoch.

Began: 2.6 million years ago

Ended: 11.7 thousand years ago

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What the Earth was like

Ice age Ice age
The last ice age hasn't ended, the climate has just warmed up a bit causing the ice sheets to retreat. When the ice was more extensive, our climate was very different.

Causes of extinctions

During this period the following extinction level events are thought to have occurred.

Climate change Climate change
Earth's climate is not constant. Over geological time, the Earth's dominant climate has gone from ice age to tropical heat and from steamy jungles to searing deserts.

Types of fossils formed in this period

Exceptional preservation
Exceptional preservation Trace fossils
Trace fossils

About

The Pleistocene (pron.: /ˈplaɪstəsiːn/) (symbol PS) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated glaciations.

Charles Lyell introduced this term in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today. This distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. He constructed the name "Pleistocene" ("Most New" or "Newest") from the Greek πλεῖστος, pleīstos, "most", and καινός, kainós (latinized as cænus), "new"; this contrasting with the immediately preceding Pleiocene ("More New" or "Newer", from πλείων, pleíōn, "more", and kainós; usual spelling: Pliocene), and the immediately subsequent Holocene ("wholly new" or "entirely new", from ὅλος, hólos, "whole", and kainós) epoch, which extends to the present time.

The Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period. It also corresponds with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, the Gelasian, Calabrian, Ionian and Tarantian. All of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this international subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used.

Before a change finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the time boundary between the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being at 1.806 million years before the present, as opposed to the currently accepted 2.588 million years BP: publications from the preceding years may use either definition of the period.

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Geological time

  1. Origin of the Earth 4.6 billion years ago
  2. Archean era
  3. Cryogenian period
  4. Ediacaran period
  5. Cambrian period
  6. Ordovician period
  7. Silurian period
  8. Devonian period
  9. Carboniferous period
  10. Permian period
  11. Triassic period
  12. Jurassic period
  13. Cretaceous period
  14. Palaeocene epoch
  15. Eocene epoch
  16. Oligocene epoch
  17. Miocene epoch
  18. Pliocene epoch
  19. Pleistocene epoch
  20. Holocene epoch
  21. Present day

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