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To: blam
By the way, thanks for the ping.

Just by way of timing for the last Pleistocene glacial event, oxygen-16/oxygen-18 ratio studies from ice cores in Greenland and the antarctic tend to show a similar trend. The end of the last interglacial (warm period) came about 125,000 years before the present (b.p.). There was then a general cooling trend until about 100,000 years b.p. From 100,000 b.p. to 85,000 b.p. there was a slight "warming" but the raios still indicate a cool period. The ratios then drop off again and reach a minimum about 20,000 years ago. That point is generally considered to be the "height" of the last Ice Age. Since then there has been a steady warming trend. Today the oxygen isotope ratios are about what they were 125,000 years ago.

The melting of the North American and Asian ice sheets would readily explain the jump in eustatic sea level from the lows at 10,000 b.p. to the levels of 6,000 b.p. - which are near the levels of today.

I believe the evidence of from the oxygen isotope fluctuations and eustatic sea level change will certainly figure into the development of early human societies.

22 posted on 02/27/2002 10:23:25 PM PST by capitan_refugio
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To: capitan_refugio
Thanks for the information, Capitan. Could you please point me to an overview and, perhaps, original papers on that?
29 posted on 02/28/2002 4:11:23 AM PST by TopQuark
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