The Quaternary: Stratigraphic Framework and Terminology

The Quaternary: Stratigraphic Framework and Terminology The Quaternary is conventionally subdivided into glacial (cold) and interglacial
l (temperate) stages, with further subdivisions into stadial (cool) and interstadial (warm) episodes. The distinction between glacials and stadials on the one hand, and interglacials and interstadials on the other, is often blurred, but glacials are generally considered to be cold periods of extended duration (spanning tens of thousands of years) during which temperatures in the mid- and high-latitude regions were low enough to promote extensive glaciations. Stadials are cold episodes of lesser duration (perhaps 10 000 years or less) when cold conditions obtained and when short-lived glacial readvances occurred. Interglacials, on the other hand, were warm periods when temperatures in the mid- and high latitudes were comparable with, or may even have exceeded, those of the present, and whose duration may have been 10000 years or more. Interstadials, by contrast, were short-lived (typically less than 5000 years) warmer episodes within a glacial stage, during which temperatures did not reach those of the present day. This type of categorisation, which is based on inferred climatic characteristics, is known as climatostratigraphy. Evidence for former glacial and interglacial conditions (as well as stadial and interstadial environments) has long been recognised in the terrestrial stratigraphic record. Former cold episodes are represented by glacial deposits, by periglacial sediments and structures, and by biological evidence (such as pollen or vertebrate remains) which are indicative of a cold-climate rgime. Interglacial and interstadial phases are reflected primarily in the fossil record (pollen, plant macrofossils, fossil insect remains, etc.), or in biogenic sediments that have accumulated in lakes or ponds during a period of warmer climatic conditions. However, because of the effects of erosion, especially glacial erosion, the Quaternary terrestrial stratigraphic record is highly fragmented and, apart from some unusual contexts such as deep lakes in areas that have escaped the direct effects of glaciation long and continuous sediment records are rarely preserved. During the later twentieth century, therefore, Quaternary scientists turned to the deep oceans of the world, where sedimentation has been taking place continuously over hundreds of thousands of years.
Indeed, many ocean sediment records extend in an uninterrupted fashion back through the Quaternary and into the preceding Tertiary period. One of the great technological breakthroughs of the twentieth century was the development of coring equipment mounted on specially designed ships (Figure 1.3) which enabled complete sediment cores to be obtained from the deep ocean floor, sometimes from water depths in excess of 3 km! What these cores revealed was a remarkable long-term record of oceanographic and, by implication, climatic change. This is reflected in the oxygen isotope signal (or trace) in marine microfossils contained within the ocean floor sediments. The variations in the ratio between two isotopes of oxygen, the more common and lighter oxygen-16 (16O) and the rarer heavier oxygen-18 (18O), are indications of the changing isotopic composition of ocean waters between glacial and interglacial stages. As the balance between the two oxygen isotopes in sea water is largely controlled by fluctuations in land ice volume,6 downcore variations in the oxygen isotope ratio (18O) can be read as a record of glacial/ interglacial climatic oscillations, working on the principle that ice sheets and glaciers would have been greatly expanded during glacial times but much less extensive during interglacials (Shackleton and Opdyke, 1973). The sequence can therefore be divided into a series of isotopic stages (marine oxygen isotope or MOI stages) and these are numbered from the top down, interglacial (temperate) stages being assigned odd numbers, while even numbers denote glacial (cold) stages. The record shows that over the course of the Figure 1.3 The Quaternary terrestrial stratigraphic sequence in different areas of the northern hemisphere, and possible correlatives with the MOI record, is shown on the right-hand side of Figure 1.4. Broadly speaking, the Quaternary can be divided into Early, Middle and Late periods. The Late Quaternary, which includes the present interglacial, last cold stage and last interglacial (ca. 0125 000 years ago), is readily correlated between the various regions, and this warmcoldwarm sequence can be equated with the MOI stratigraphy (MOI stages 15). Prior to that, however, the various regional records are
less easily correlated. During the Middle Quaternary, which encompasses the period from ca. 125 000 to 780 000 years ago, a number of glacial and interglacial episodes are reflected in the various terrestrial stratigraphic records, but several of these have no formal designation. Moreover, some designated warm and cold periods appear to contain both warm and cold stages (often several), while there are clearly gaps or hiatuses in the stratigraphic sequences. As a result, correlation not only between each of the regional sequences but also between these and the MOI template becomes increasingly uncertain. These problems are even more acute during the Early Quaternary (prior to ca. 780 000 years ago) where the number of designated stages is even fewer, and both regional correlations and links with the MOI sequence become increasingly speculative. In many ways, Figure 1.4 exemplifies one of the principal difficulties in Quaternary science, namely the lack of a universal dating technique that is applicable to the entire Quaternary time range and to all stratigraphic contexts. The figure is, nevertheless, a useful aide-memoir, and the reader will find it helpful to refer back to it when working through some of the case studies later in the book One part of the Quaternary record where there is a broad measure of agreement and where, moreover, there is also closer dating control is the climatic oscillation that occurred at the end of the Last Cold Stage (ca. 15 000 and 11 500 years ago) and which is most clearly reflected in proxy climate records from around the North Atlantic region. This episode is referred to as the Weichselian Lateglacial in northern Europe and the Devensian Lateglacial in Britain (Figure 1.5, right). It is characterised by rapid warming around 14 800 years ago (the Blling-Allerd Interstadial in Europe; Lateglacial or Windermere Interstadial in Britain), a significant cooling (Younger Dryas or Loch Lomond Stadial) around 12 900 years ago, and finally an abrupt climatic amelioration at the onset of the present (Holocene) interglacial at ca. 11 500 years ago. In the Greenland (GRIP) ice core (Chapter 5), this climatic oscillation is reflected in a series of clearly
defined events in the oxygen isotope record (GS-2; GI-1; GS-1: Figure 1.5, left). Greenland Interstadial 1 is further divided into a series of sub-events, with GI-1a, GI-1c and GI-1e representing warmer intervals, and GI-1b and GI-1d reflecting cooler episodes (Bjrck et al., 1998; Walker et al., 1999). Whereas the timescale for terrestrial sequences from Britain and northern Europe is based on calibrated radiocarbon years (section 2.6), the Greenland (GRIP) record is in ice-core years (section 5.5). Again, the reader may find it useful to cross-reference some of the later case studies with Figure 1.5. 1.6 The

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The Quaternary: Stratigraphic Framework and Terminology The Quaternary is conventionally subdivided into glacial (cold) and interglacial

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