Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
PRESENT PROPOSAL
Holocene
0.012
0.126
0.781
1.806
2.588
Upper
“Ionian”
Calabrian
Pleistocene
Gelasian
Piacenzian
Pliocene
3.600
Zanclean
5.332
7.246
11.608
13.82
15.97
20.43
Messinian
Tortonian
Serravalian
Miocene
Langhian
Burdigalian
Aquitanian
23.03
Chattian
Oligocene
28.4
33.9
37.2
40.4
48.6
55.8
Rupelian
Priabonian
Bartonian
Eocene
Lutetian
Ypresian
Thanetian
Selandian
Danian
58.7
Paleocene
61.1
65.5
Figure 2.2
The revised base of the Quaternary period, a Global Stratotype Section and Point
(GSSP), as accepted in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Repro-
duced from Gibbard
et al.
(2009), with permission
onset of cold/glacial-warm/interglacial cycles was characterized in the Mediter-
ranean lowlands by steppe vegetation dominated by
Artemisia
and
Ephedra
during
the former while forests prevailed during the shorter warm periods. Similarly, in the
eastern Mediterranean, pollen assemblages from the Hula Basin, a drained/infilled
lake basin c. 70m asl (above sea level) in a rift valley that contains sediments de-
rived from two mountain regions, the Golan Heights and Naftali Mountains, indi-
cate intense cooling between 2.4 and 2.6
10
6
years ago (Horowitz, 1989). How-
ever, in the southern Mediterranean Basin the pollen assemblages indicate that
environmental change was less pronounced, suggesting that temperature depres-
sion was of insufficient magnitude to prompt major vegetation change. As Hughes
(Chapter 3) points out there is only limited evidence for glaciation during the early
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