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Quaternary-Pleistocene "Ice Ages"

• Ice Ages. Illinois State Museum. Good, nontechnical summaries concerning what ice ages are, when they occurred, and why they occur. The first page has an animation that shows the advance and retreat of the last ice sheet across North America. The link to Why ice ages occur? has good summaries of theories for the Pleistocene ice age, including changing continental positions, uplift of continental blocks, reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, and changes in the earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles).
• Ice. Rice University. Excellent site for understanding glaciers, including continental glaciers. Glacial landforms and features provides information and images of glacial landforms. Why ice ages? provides brief explanations of theories for the Pleistocene ice age, including land at the poles, tectonic events, and orbital changes (Milankovitch cycles).
• Ice Ages. Rochester University. Good summary of the last ice age, with information and pictures about glaciers, effects of glaciers (climate, physcial evidence, landforms), and theories on the causes of ice ages.
• The Great Ice Age. Lois Ray, U.S. Geological Survey. Online, nontechnical report in PDF format, which explains the observations that provided evidence for an "Ice Age" and explanations of how continental glaciers formed and retreated.
• Chapter 10. Landforms of Glaciation. Fundamentals of Physical Geography. Online textbook chapter concerning glacial erosion and deposits with many pictures and illustrations.
• Glaciation. Chilliwack Senior Secondary School. Good page constructed for a high school class on glaciation. Has links to images and animations of glacial landforms as well as short summaries of continental glaciers and the causes of ice ages.
• The Discovery of Global Warming--The Variable Sun. American Institute of Physics. Technical summary of the history of climate change theories, including observations that led to the realization of a series of Pleistocene ice ages.
• History of Pleistocene. Introduction to Quaternary Geology, University of Arizona. Online course notes show the progressive complexity to our understanding of Pleistocene time from early observations that led to idea of an ice age, the development of the Quaternary Period, the major divisions of the Pleistocene in the Midcontinent United States, alpine areas, and Europe, and ending with subdivisions of the last ice sheet from isotope data.
• The Big Chill. K.A. Maasch, NOVA Online. Explanation of what an ice age is, with short summaries of possible causes for the Pleistocene ice ages.
• Last Ice Age. Paleomap Project. Map of the world at the last glacial maximum, 18,000 years ago.
• The Ice Age in Ohio. M. Hansen, Ohio Geological Survey. Four-page non-technical paper (pdf format) explaining the last Ice Age in Ohio. Brief explanations of what an Ice Age is, what happened during the last Ice Age in Ohio (just north of Kentucky), the types of landforms left behind by continental ice, and the economic resources that resulted from the melting ice.

 

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