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What status for the Quaternary? |
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| Authors: | PHILIP L GIBBARD ALAN G SMITH JAN A ZALASIEWICZ TIFFANY L BARRY DAVID CANTRILL ANGELA L COE JOHN C W COPE REW S GALE F JOHN GREGORY JOHN H POWELL PETER F RAWSON PHILIP STONE COLIN N WATERS |
| Institution: | a Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK b Department of Earth Sciences, Sedgwick Museum, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK c Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK d Department of Earth Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK e Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden f School of Earth Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK g School of Environmental Science, Greenwich University, UK h Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London, UK i Kronos Consultants, St. Albans, Herts, UK j Department of Paleontology, Natural History Museum, London, UK k Britsh Geological Survey, keyworth, Nottingham, UK l Department of Geological Sciences, University College London, London, UK m British Geological Survey, Edinburgh, UK |
| Abstract: | The status of the Quaternary, long regarded as a geological period effectively coincident with the main climatic deterioration of the current Ice Age, has recently been questioned as a formal stratigraphic unit. We argue here that it should be retained as a formal period of geological time. Furthermore, we consider that its beginning should be placed at the Gauss-Matuyama magnetic chron boundary at about 2.6?Ma, rather than at its current position at about 1.8?Ma. The Quaternary would be formally subdivided into the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. The global chronostratigraphical correlation table proposed is enclosed at the back of this issue. |
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