IN WHAT PERIOD DID THE GLACIATIONS END? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The glaciations of planet earth ended about 12 thousand years ago. An ice age is a prolonged period of time during which there is a sharp drop in global temperature.

Together with the low temperatures, a series of effects are triggered at a natural level, the most visible being the extension of the ice sheets of the polar caps to continental areas.

The first glacial periods date back several million years. The planet has gone through numerous ice ages throughout its history, the last being the Würm Ice Age, also called the Ice Age.

The Würm Glaciation ended about 12 thousand years ago, from that time to modern times the earth has not suffered significant periods of ice age.

When the last ice age happened

There have been two of the most extreme glaciation episodes in the history of the planet, the Snowball Earth, which happened 700 million years ago, and the aforementioned Würm Glaciation, which happened 110 thousand years ago.

The Würm Glaciation was the last glacial period to occur on earth. It began more than 110 thousand years ago during the Pleistocene, with a duration of about 100 thousand years, ending 12 thousand years ago and beginning the geological era known as the Holocene or postglacial period.

The end of the Würm Glaciation meant a substantial improvement in climatic conditions worldwide, allowing a rise in temperatures and the thawing of many areas in North America and Eurasia.

The tropics were also severely affected during the last ice age; the Amazon experienced historic drops in temperature.

After this, more favorable conditions for life have allowed the development of one of the most extensive biospheres in the world.

Characteristics of the Würm Glaciation

The term glaciation comes from the Latin glacie, which means "Ice formation" which is perhaps the most observable characteristic when there is a sudden and prolonged drop in world temperature.

During the last ice age there was an increase in the extension of the polar ice caps, especially in Europe, North America, the Andes mountain range and the areas of Argentine Patagonia.

There was also a decrease in the sea surface and the disappearance of many plant and animal species, the best known being the extinction of the woolly mammoth.

Causes and consequences of glaciations

The causes that originate the glaciations have not been able to be fully established, however various studies indicate that these causes would be of natural origin, so there would be no efficient ways to counteract them.

Periodic variations in the Earth's rotation, in the planetary magnetic field and in the movement around the Sun, would have a direct influence on the temperature drops that occurred on Earth during the last 2 million years.

Volcanic activity also seems to be directly related to glaciations, the immense amounts of gases and ash thrown into the atmosphere by volcanoes each year would act as a greenhouse gas.

Consequences of the glaciations

The impact of the glaciations can be immense, during the last ice age there were variations in the levels of the seas and oceans, modification of ocean currents and massive extinctions of the mega fauna.

The Holocene mass extinction was caused by the glaciation. It is considered the second most devastating extinction process in the history of the earth, only surpassed by the mass extinction of the Cretaceous-Tertiary, product of the impact of a meteorite.

References

1. The Effect of Ice Age Glaciers (nd). Retrieved on October 7, 2017, from Study.
2. Damian Carrington (July 10, 2017). Earth's mass extinction event. Retrieved on October 7, 2017, from The Guardian.
3. Consequences of a glaciation (nd). Retrieved on October 7, 2017, from Quaternary Climate.
4. VA Zubakov, II Borzenkova (1990). Global Palaeoclimate of the Late Cenozoic.
5. Jaime Recarte (July 23, 2015). Climate change led to the extinction of the megafauna. Retrieved on October 7, 2017, from ABC.
6. Ice age (nd). Retrieved on October 7, 2017, from New World Encyclopedia.
7. John Imbrie (1979). Ice ages: Solving the mystery.