Quaternary period - meaning and definition. What is Quaternary period
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What (who) is Quaternary period - definition

THIRD AND CURRENT PERIOD OF THE CENOZOIC ERA
Quaternary age; Quaternary period; Quaternary Period; Quarternary; Quarterny period; The Quaternary Period; Quaternary (geology); Pleisto-Holocene; Quatenary; Quaternaries
  • Artist's impression of Earth during the [[Last Glacial Maximum]]

quaternary         
[kw?'t?:n(?)ri]
¦ adjective
1. fourth in order or rank.
2. (Quaternary) Geology relating to or denoting the most recent period in the Cenozoic era, following the Tertiary period (comprising the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs and beginning 1.64 million years ago).
3. Chemistry denoting an ammonium compound containing a cation of the form NR4+, where R represents organic groups.
Origin
ME: from L. quaternarius, from quaterni 'four at once', from quater 'four times', from quattuor 'four'.
Quaternary         
·noun The number four.
II. Quaternary ·adj Consisting of four; by fours, or in sets of four.
III. Quaternary ·noun The Quaternary age, era, or formation. ·see the Chart of Geology.
IV. Quaternary ·adj Later than, or subsequent to, the Tertiary; Post-tertiary; as, the Quaternary age, or Age of man.
quaternary         
a.
Four, fourfold, consisting of four.

Wikipedia

Quaternary

The Quaternary ( kwə-TUR-nə-ree, KWOT-ər-nerr-ee) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene (2.58 million years ago to 11.7 thousand years ago) and the Holocene (11.7 thousand years ago to today) although a third epoch, the Anthropocene, has been proposed but is not officially recognised by the ICS.

The Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets related to the Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that they caused.