Holocene Epoch

The Quaternary Period is subdivided into the Pleistocene Epoch and, commencing at 10,000 years ago, the Holocene Epoch. The Holocene is synonymous with the Postglacial or present interglaciation. ... 

It is important to realise that clay can be exposed to many processes after it has been depos-ited. The periods are the Miocene Epoch (26 - 7 million years old), the Pliocene Epoch (7-2 millions years old), the Pleistocene Epoch (2 million to 15,000 years old) and the Holocene Epoch (up to approximately 15,000 years old). In The Netherlands no primary clay deposits are found, i.e. all clay is secondary, i.e. formed elsewhere and transported by wind, ice or water. 

Epoch Usually, the smallest division of geologic time. Periods are divided into epochs. The Holocene epoch ranges from the end of the last glaciation about 11 500 years ago to the present. 

Modern estuaries are recent features that only formed over the past 5000 to 6000 years during the stable interglacial period of the middle-to-late Holocene epoch (0-10,000 y BP), which followed an extensive rise in sea level at the end of the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 My to 10,000 y BP). 

Blunier T., Chappellaz J., Schwander J., Stauffer B., and Raynaud D. (1995) Variations in atmospheric methane concentration during the Holocene epoch. Nature 374, 46-49. 

Table 2(a) Carbon dioxide data from polar ice cores. Carbon dioxide concentrations and carbon isotope values (in per mil relative to the PDB standard) are listed for the LGM ( 18-24 ka), the Holocene Epoch (1-10 ka), and the most recent pre-industrial part of the Holocene Epoch (1000-1800 AD). Key references for the CO2 data from each core site are hsted in the right-hand colunrn. The superscript letters in the data table indicate the references from which the indicated values were derived. Values for Vostok (LGM and Holocene)... 

Figure 6 The Holocene ice-core record of the variability of methane, carbon dioxide, and S C02- (a) The methane record from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica, showing significant variability including variability in the interpolar gradient (Chappellaz et al., 1997). (b) The results of a three-box model used to infer the latitudinal distribution sources of methane at four different time spans during the Holocene Epoch (Chappellaz et al., 1997). (c, d) The carbon dioxide concentration and its isotopic composition from Taylor Dome, Antarctica (Indermuhle et al., 1999). Note the dissimilarities among the trends in this figure (Raynaud et al. (2000) reproduced by permission of Elsevier from Quat. Set. Rev., 2000, 19, 9-17 (figure 1)).

The Cenozoic Era (c.65 million years BP to the present) encompasses the Tertiary and the Quaternary Periods. During the Tertiary the Earth s climate began an overall cooling trend of about 12 °C in the past 40 million years. Over the past two and a half million years the climate has varied from cool to warm periods, accompanied by massive expansions and contractions of the polar ice caps. This period of climate fluctuation is termed the Quaternary Period and spans the geologic time scale from the end of the Pliocene Epoch, roughly 1.8-2.6 million years ago, to the present. The Quaternary Period includes the Pleistocene and Holocene Epochs, with the Holocene... 

Most tufas and travertines observed today date from the Pleistocene or Holocene epochs, although some deposits are of much greater antiquity. 

The half-life of radium 226 makes its abundance in the upper layers of ocean sediments, which settled within the past 10,000 years (Holocene epoch), convenient to measure. A comparison of 226Ra abundance to 228Ra in various ocean locations allows for determination of ocean current directional flow Because 228Ra is produced more strongly in shallow areas, and its lifetime is so much shorter, observation of radium 228 far from shore can indicate offshore currents that are otherwise difficult to measure. 

Foley, J., Kutzbach, J. F,., Coe, M. T., and I.evis, S. (1994). Feedbacks between climate and boreal forests during the Holocene epoch. Nalitre 371,52-54. 

Holocene (Recent) 1) Time The last epoch within the Quaternary Period and the Ceno-zoic Era, equivalent to Oxygen Isotope Stage 2. Traditionally defined to have begun at 10 ka, some now place the boundary at approximately 10.8 ka, at the end of the Younger Dryas event. 2) Rocks The rocks or sediment formed during the Holocene Epoch, also known as the Flandrian in Britain. 

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