The Permo-Carboniferous is the time period including the latter parts of the Carboniferous and early part of the Permian period. Permo-Carboniferous rocks are in places not differentiated because of the presence of transitional fossils , and also where no conspicuous stratigraphic break is present.
8-488: Permo-Carboniferous time, about 300 million years ago, was a period of significant glaciation . The widespread distribution of Permo-Carboniferous glacial sediments in South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, India, Antarctica and Australia was one of the major pieces of evidence for the theory of continental drift , and led ultimately to the concept of a super-continent, Pangaea . Glacial activity spanned virtually
16-406: 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 . Within
24-894: The Alps ), Weichsel (in northern Central Europe ), Dali (in East China ), Beiye (in North China ), Taibai (in Shaanxi ) Luoji Shan (in southwest Sichuan ), Zagunao (in northwest Sichuan ), Tianchi (in the Tian Shan ) Jomolungma (in the Himalayas ), and Llanquihue (in Chile ). The glacial advance reached the Last Glacial Maximum about 26,500 BP . In Europe , the ice sheet reached Northern Germany . Over
32-925: The Eemian interglacial. The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pleistocene , and began about 110,000 years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago. The glaciations that occurred during the glacial period covered many areas of the Northern Hemisphere and have different names, depending on their geographic distributions: Wisconsin (in North America ), Devensian (in Great Britain ), Midlandian (in Ireland ), Würm (in
40-471: The Quaternary , which started about 2.6 million years before present , there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 years alone. The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial period that occurred before the Last Glacial Period . It began about 194,000 years ago and ended 135,000 years ago, with the beginning of
48-406: The last 650,000 years, there have been on average seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat. Since orbital variations are predictable, computer models that relate orbital variations to climate can predict future climate possibilities. Work by Berger and Loutre suggests that the current warm climate may last another 50,000 years. The amount of heat trapping (greenhouse) gases being emitted into
56-408: The task of charting the evolution of the ice sheet over this interval. The Permo-Carboniferous ice sheet was so extensive that it would occupy a circle spanning 50 degrees of latitude centered on the pole. 219 Geology 31:977–980. This geochronology article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation )
64-530: The whole of Carboniferous and Early Permian time. Toward the end of the Carboniferous, around 290 million years ago, Gondwana , the southern part of Pangaea, was located near the south pole. Glacial centres expanded across the continents, producing glacial tillites and striations in pre-existing rocks. A complex centre of glaciation migrated across South America, Antarctica and South Africa between about 350 and 240 Ma. Chronological difficulties complicate
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