Quaternary: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As	Great Ice Age • Quaternary Period

Photos

Quaternary paleogeography

A detailed geologic time scale chart displaying Earth's history from the Hadean Eon over 4.5 billion years ago to the present, organized by eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages with color-coded columns and corresponding dates in millions of years.

A geologic time scale chart showing the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era, divided into the Holocene and Pleistocene epochs with corresponding stages and ages, alongside a timeline in millions of years ago.

Gornergletscher (Gorner Glacier

Replica of a woolly mammoth with long curved tusks and shaggy fur on display in a museum exhibit, set against a dramatic painted landscape backdrop.

woolly rhinoceros

A diagram showing the tentative evolutionary relationships among hominid species over the past four million years, with skull images and labeled species names connected by solid and dotted lines to indicate proposed evolutionary pathways.

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Topics

Pleistocene Epoch Holocene Epoch Anthropocene Epoch Sub-Atlantic Climatic Interval Climatic Optimum Meghalayan Stage Northgrippian stage Greenlandian stage Flandrian Transgression Calaisian Substage Tertiary Period Paleogene Period Neogene Period

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Australia: The Quaternary Period

Key People

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Maurice-Irénée-Marie Gignoux

French geologist