By George Currie Erinn Mclaughlin

1. Quaternary Period By George Currie Erinn Mclaughlin

2. Time Period The Quaternary Period was the longest period in the Cenzoic era. The era was defined by ice ages It ranged from 2.588 million years ago to 0.005 million years ago. The period is divided into two epochs. The Pleistocene and the Holocene.

3. Climate/Atmosphere The Quaternary period was filled with ice ages. Ice sheets spread from the poles and covered parts of Europe, North America, Asia, South America and all of Antarctica. There were also some warm spells which melted the ice and exposed mountains and new rivers. During warm spells, the ice retreats and exposes reshaped mountains striped with new rivers draining to giant basins like today's Great Lakes. Plants and animals that sought warmth and comfort toward the Equator return to the higher latitudes. In fact, each shift alters global winds and ocean currents that in turn alter patterns of precipitation and aridity around the world. Major climatic changes which caused ice sheets to advance into temperate latitudes. Repeated glacial episodes caused significant fluctuations in sea level, major geographical changes and major plant and animal population migrations. Sedimentary sequences record these changes in great detail and are central to unravelling past events.

4. Major Events There were many ice ages in this time period. Folding, faulting and uplift were common in western North America. These resulted from Pacific and North American plate interaction along the San Andreas fault system. There were at least 20 major warm-cold cycles in which the world's mean temperature ranged from 6°C to 10°C. Stratigraphic evidence indicates that there were at least four major episodes of Pleistocene glaciation in North America and seven major glacial advances and retreats in Europe. Humans appeared in this period. The land bridge between North America and Asia formed. The Great Lakes, Hudsons Bay and other major lakes are formed at this time. During the Pleistocene epoch is when the Great Ice age occurred it covered as much as 30% of earths surface.

5. Landforms Continent Position Over the 2.6 million years of this time period the total drift of the continents was less then 100 km. The major geographical changes in the period were the emergence of the Strait of Bosphorus and Skagerrak which actually eventually turned into the Black Sea and Baltic Sea. The English Channel started filling with salt water again which created a land bridge between Britain and the European Mainland. There was also the closing of the Bering Strait which created the land bridge between America and Asia.

6. Animals

7. Wooly Mammoth Time- Late Pleistocene Range- Europe/ North America/ Asia Size- 9ft high Mammuthus primigenius, the Wooly Mammoth was a cold climate dweller equipped with a thick layer of fat for insulation, and an exterior of long black hair. The Wooly Mammoth was smaller then most mammoths and had a hump of fat behind its domed head. It fed on low tundra vegetation in which it scraped away snow and ice from with its ivory tusks. Several well preserved remains have been found in Siberia and Alaska and cave paintings in Spain and France show depictions of the Wooly Mammoth as seen by early humans. The Mammoth went extinct 10 000 years ago.

8. Saber Tooth Cat Time- Late Pleistocene period Range- North America/ South America Diet- Meat Eater Size- 4 ft long The Saber Tooth Cat a short tail, much like todays bobcats. Its huge pair of teeth on the upper jaw were serrated along their back edges, this allowed for them to easily pierce flesh. It most likely fed on slow moving prey to make it easier for them to sink their teeth into them. A large number of skeletons have been found in the tar pits of Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles.

9. Coelodonta COELODONTAantiquitatis Pleistocene mammalThis creature was a huge beast that lived in during the last ice age. The Coelodonta had a massive body and a thick, shaggy coat that protected it against the harsh climate of the tundra and steppe that bordered the great glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere. Coelodonta had a pair of huge horns on its snout that reached lengths of up to 3ft in the largest of males. These creatures were hunted by early humans and they were depicted on the walls of caves in France 30,000 years ago.TIME - 200 - 25 TYA, Pleistocene epoch.SIZE - Up to 12ft (3.7m) long and 5.5ft (1.7m) at the shoulder.WEIGHT - Up to 1.2 US tons.

10. Mastadon This unusual large mammal lived in North America during thePleistocene epoch until the end of the ice age. It roamed the earthfor over a million years, but suddenly disappeared (perhaps because of the climate changes). It was one of the largest land animals living during the ice age. Mastodon belonged to the family Mammutidae, that originated in North Africa, spreading to Eurasia and entering North America 15 million years ago. Its name means "nipple tooth". These elephant-like animals were affected by environmental changes. Mastodons living during the middle of the last glaciation were small, whereas those living later in forests were larger. It was mostly adapted to conifer forests and marsh. It fed on plants (conifer twigs, swamp plants, larch, spruce, pine, grass, mosses, etc.) and used its tusks to break branches.Mastodon had rather short, straight tusks and sharp cheek teeth. Females were smaller, their tusks were lighter and smaller than those of males. They had coats of fine underwool, overlain by abundant hair (2-7 inches in length).Fossils of mastodons are commonly found all over the North America and Canada. Mastodon americanus was first recognized in 1799 by well-known French anatomist Baron Cuvier.RANGE: North America, CanadaSIZE: about 4.5 m long body, 2-3 m in shoulder heightTIME - Pleistocene

11. Plant Life Plant life was essentially the same as it is right now. There were large boreal forests.

12. Megafaunal Extinction At the end of the last ice age (ca 15,000-10,000 years ago), 85 percent of the large mammals (called megafauna) went extinct. The mass extinctions were not synchronous nor universal, and the reasons proffered for them include (but are not limited to) climate change and human intervention. Regional Megafauna Extinctions North America lost about 35 genera of mostly large animals, such as the ground sloth, American lion, dire wolf, and short-faced bear. At the same time 19 genera of birds disappeared; and some animals and birds made radical changes in their habitats, moving north or south. In Eurasia, 21 taxa disappeared, and as in North America, other species dramatically altered their habitat range. It is clear there, at least, that different animals disappeared at different times within the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, and thus probably for various reasons. North American data is less clear. Recently, evidence of the survival of several species of giant ground sloth has been discovered in the West Indies, to as late as 5,000 years ago, coincident with the arrival of humans in the region. This is extinction that we lost the famous Dodo bird.