Quaternary glaciations

The Quaternary is synonymous with extensive glaciation of Earth's mid- and high latitudes. Although there were local precursors, significant glaciation began in the Oligocene in eastern Antarctica. It was followed by glaciation in mountain areas through the Miocene (in Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, and Patagonia), later in the Pliocene (e.g., in the Alps, the Bolivian Andes, and possibly in Tasmania), and in the earliest Pleistocene (New Zealand, Iceland, and Greenland). Today, evidence from both the land and the ocean floors demonstrates that the major continental glaciations, outside the polar regions, rather than occurring throughout the 2.6 Ma of the Quaternary, were markedly restricted to the last 1 Ma–800 Ka or less. Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 22 (ca. 870–880 Ma) included the first of the “major” worldwide events with substantial ice volumes that typify the later Pleistocene glaciations (i.e., MIS 16, 12, 10, 6, 4–2).