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glacial period
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interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances
Wikidata facts
- Part of
- ice age
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Ice ages
- opposite of
- interglacial period
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. The Holocene is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a greenhouse climate state.
Quaternary Period
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “glacial period” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.