pleistocene, definition of

Period in geologic history (basically the last one million years) when ice sheets covered large sections of the Earth's land surface not now covered by glaciers.

• When Climate Change Really Was an Existential Threat
  Guest “Could have used the Extinction Rebellion back then!” by David Middleton, What was going on from 1,000-800 ka that may have nearly wiped out our ancestors? Temperatures plunged, glaciers…
• Younger Dryas Myth-Busting: Flash-Frozen Mammoths Edition
  Guest “Pleistocene elephant hunting” by David Middleton “The body of this mammoth was found perfectly preserved in the Siberian tundra with food still in its mouth and stomach indicating that…
• Start of “Dog-ocene” dated to at least 28,500 years ago
  Guest post by David Middleton Two of my favorite things are dogs and the Pleistocene… New Study Results Consistent With Dog Domestication During Ice Ageby Matt McGowan | Feb 19, 2020 | Advancing the Data Revolution, Research News Analysis...
• Climate change was bad for Neanderthal children in the Pleistocene! And so was the lead-poisoning!
  Guest commentary by David Middleton   In addition to an email from Rush Holt encouraging me to vote in the midterm elections (I already voted against every Democrat on the ballot), The American Association for the Advancement of Science in America...
• Paper: ‘Summer temperatures were about 10°C warmer than today, even though the concentration of atmospheric CO2 was similar’
  From AAAS: From Russia with Lovely Data Climate and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 are closely linked. Brigham-Grette et al. (p. 1421, published online 9 May) present data from Lake El’gygytgyn, in northeast Arctic Russia, that shows how climate...
• Multiple, Intense, Abrupt Late Pleistocene Warming And Cooling: Implications For Understanding The Cause Of Global Climate Change
  Guest essay by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA The results of oxygen isotope measurements from ice cores in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets several decades ago stunned the scientific world....
• Multiple, Intense, Abrupt Late Pleisitocene Warming And Cooling: Implications For Understanding The Cause Of Global Climate Change
  Guest essay by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA The results of oxygen isotope measurements from ice cores in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets several decades ago stunned the scientific world....
• On certainty: Truth is the Daughter of Time
  This comment from Dr. Robert Brown at Duke University is elevated from a comment to a full post for further discussion. Since we have a new paper (Shepherd et al) that is being touted in the media as “certain” using … Continue reading...
• Onset of the Next Glaciation
  Guest post by David Archibald Baby boomers like me have enjoyed the most benign period in human history. The superpower nuclear standoff gave us fifty years of relative peace, we had cheap energy from inherent over-supply of oil, grain supply …...
• The Intriguing Problem Of The Younger Dryas—What Does It Mean And What Caused It?
  This is a follow up posting to Younger Dryas -The Rest of the Story! Guest post by Don J. Easterbrook Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University. The Younger Dryas was a period of rapid cooling in the late Pleistocene 12,800 … Continue reading...