The Pleistocene is a geologic epoch within the Quaternary Period, spanning roughly 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, characterized by repeated glacial–interglacial cycles driven by orbital (Milankovitch) forcing and associated feedbacks in the climate system. It encompasses major expansions of continental ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, large sea-level fluctuations, and pronounced shifts in atmospheric composition and global temperature. Stratigraphically, its base is defined near the Gauss–Matuyama magnetic reversal, and its end is marked by the transition to the Holocene following the last glacial termination. The Pleistocene is critical for understanding late Cenozoic climate dynamics and associated environmental changes.
If you've seen any of the "Ice Age" animated Disney movies, we have some bad news: You don't know the real ice age.
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 26, 2025
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Approximately 400,000 years ago, some areas of Greenland that are now covered by a thick layer of ice were exposed to fresh air and sunlight. Today, the Greenland Ice Sheet covers most of the land mass, but the southwestern ...
Environment
Nov 25, 2025
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A study by research teams at the National Museum of Natural Science and National Taiwan University has, for the first time, unveiled Taiwan's vanished Pleistocene ecosystem: a warm, arid savanna environment dominated by grasslands ...
Ecology
Nov 5, 2025
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An explorer and a glaciologist have embarked on a three-month mission to cross part of Antarctica on kite skis in search of ice that is 130,000 years old.
Earth Sciences
Nov 1, 2025
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Large changes in global sea level, fueled by fluctuations in ice sheet growth and decay, occurred throughout the last ice age, rather than just toward the end of that period, a study published in the journal Science has found.
Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2025
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Hippos from Central Europe were assumed to have gone extinct around 115,000 years ago when the temperate conditions of the region transitioned into an icy one with the end of the last interglacial period and the beginning ...
Hippos, today restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, survived in central Europe far longer than previously assumed. Analyses of bone finds demonstrate that hippos inhabited the Upper Rhine Graben sometime between approximately ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 10, 2025
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Earth's climate has fluctuated between cold and warm periods for millions of years. During the so-called "lukewarm interglacials"—warm phases between 800,000 and 430,000 years ago—atmospheric CO2 concentrations were only ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 6, 2025
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For as long as there have been people in what is now California, the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada have held masses of ice, according to new research that shows the glaciers have probably existed since the last Ice Age ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 2, 2025
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Andean glaciers advanced during an acute period of climate change at the end of the last Ice Age, new research has found.
Earth Sciences
Sep 23, 2025
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