What happened during Pleistocene period?
It was during the Pleistocene that the most recent episodes of global cooling, or ice ages, took place. Much of the world’s temperate zones were alternately covered by glaciers during cool periods and uncovered during the warmer interglacial periods when the glaciers retreated.
What caused the Pleistocene period?
The Pleistocene Epoch began about 2.56 million years ago. This Pleistocene ice ages are linked to climate changes cause by many factors resulted in the cyclic expansion of continental glaciers in the polar regions of both hemispheres.
What is an example of a pluvial lake?
Lake Lahontan in Nevada, USA, is an example of a pluvial lake. Pluvial lakes are formed by exorbitant rainfall that coincided with very low evaporation levels. The name itself is taken from the Latin language to indicate the connection with the rain and moisture.
Why is Pleistocene important?
The Pleistocene experienced the most important single environmental event since the human species has been on Earth: The oscillation between glaciation and interglacial during the Pleistocene Epoch.
How is the Holocene defined?
The Holocene is the name given to the last 11,700 years* of the Earth’s history — the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or “ice age.” Since then, there have been small-scale climate shifts — notably the “Little Ice Age” between about 1200 and 1700 A.D. — but in general, the Holocene has been a …
What is pluvial condition?
In geology and climatology, a pluvial is either a modern climate characterized by relatively high precipitation or an interval of time of variable length, decades to thousands of years, during which a climate is characterized by relatively high precipitation or humidity, Subdivisions of a pluvial, which are …
What are pluvial lakes and how do they form?
A pluvial lake is a body of water that accumulated in a basin because of a greater moisture availability resulting from changes in temperature and/or precipitation. These intervals of greater moisture availability are not always contemporaneous with glacial periods.