Quaternary Period

The Quaternary Period is the most recent period in Earth’s history and is related to the older Tertiary Period (now the Palaeogene-Neogene Period) (1854). There have been longstanding arguments about two aspects of the Quaternary Period: (1) the original concept of the Neogene System included the time interval of the Quaternary Period, and there is an argument as to whether this nomenclature should be deleted; and (2) the lower age limit of the Quaternary Period was once considered to be 1.8 million years or 1.64 million years ago. However, Chinese geologists (An Zhiseng and Wang Naiwen et al. in 1979 and later Liu Dongsheng et al.) proposed that the onset of the glacial climate in the northern hemisphere should represent the boundary of the Quaternary Period. This postulation has gradually gained recognition and support from many geologists around the world. The 2010 International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and the International Commission of Stratigraphy (ICS) conducted an...