The Pleistocene Epoch

The Pleistocene Epoch occurred during the Cenozoic Era of the Quaternary period, it took up most of the era extending from 1.81-0.01 MYA. The pleistocene is referred to as the Last Ice age, when modern humans were primarily evident. As a matter of fact the Pleistocene is a combination between two latin words “Pleistos” meaning most and “Kainos” meaning new or recent. The continents were in their most current positioning Grasslands had developed to adapt to the new chillier climate, environments such as taigas were introduced and colonize much of the northern environment and deciduous forest colonized further south. The cold temperature supported a new breed of cold adapting plants such as the miniature willow and birch trees, ground hugging
lichens and mosses. During the warmer temperature grapevines and hazel's would appear once again in the north. Many south american and south african rainforest would have diverged into small islands with bands of grasslands in between, moreover towards the end of the epoch the abundance of steppes declined. However, large Ice Sheets covered 30% of the earth's surface and this includes much of modern day europe, small areas of asia, north and south america along with new zealand and australia.
The water levels during this epoch were 120 m lower relative to recent times. The ocean was also much colder making it rich in 18^O , during the early pleistocene period the earth experienced 102 marine isotopic stages, these stages were shallow and frequent and at a later date they were more intense and random. Due to the low water levels the earth experienced several dust storms and the variation between hot and cold became most evident during the later stages of the Pleistocene Epoch. The Glaciers had much to do with the lower water levels, each glacial advance tied up a certain volume of water, which occurred the most between the summer and winter seasons.. Huge glaciers extended through continents like North America and Europe, covering most of the world. but during the glacial periods the hydraulic system was completely interrupted through large areas. The climate during the pleistocene epoch was know to be a colder and drier one than the one today, much of the water was essentially ice and the little precipitation occurred due to
this. Little evaporation occurs due to the cold weather causing lakes to accumulate south of the ice sheets. The average temperature of this time was 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. The Pleistocene Epoch has its own subdivisions consisting of Gelasian, Calabrian, Ionian, and Tarantian periods. The Gelasian Period is the