Kansan Glaciation
The
Kansan Glaciation (known in
UK as the
Anglian glaciation,
Elster glaciation in northern Europe and the
Mindel glaciation in the
Alps) was a severe glacial period in the
Pleistocene. The Kansan Glaciation is generally taken as covering the period between 410,000 and 380,000 years before the present. However, with the increasing evidence that glacial
maxima are shorter than previously thought, its peak is not clearly known. It is considered that the Kansan Glaciation marks the absolute maximum extent of continental
ice sheets in the
Quaternary.
The name, generally used only in
North America, comes from the evidence that ice sheets reached as far south as
Douglas County, Kansas, which is more than 500 kilometres further south than the limits of maximum glaciation during the
Last Glacial Maximum. In Europe, ice sheets extended as far south as present-day
Slovakia and
London.
Because the last glacial maximum has buried most evidence of the severe Kansan glaciation, establishing environmental conditions elsewhere during this period is very difficult and can be done only via oceanic studies. These, however, indicate that the
jet stream during the Kansan glaciation might have been as much as five degrees further south than it was during the last glacial maximum. (This would place it over
Sonora state in
Mexico and over southern
Morocco in
Africa).
These findings suggest strongly that the Kansan glaciation had much greater effects on the distribution of
flora and
fauna than more recent glacial periods. Particularly, many small ice-free refugia in North America are likely to have been completely ice-covered during this period, while in
West and
Central Africa, and southern
Australia, most of the hypothesised
forest refugia of the last ice age are likely to have lost their forest cover.
Glaciers probably also occupied much larger areas in the mountains than they did at the last glacial maximum. (For instance, periglacial features in the
Drakensberg suggest glaciation at some period in the Quaternary, but other evidence suggests the mountains were not glaciated during the last glacial).
The
Amazon rainforest, which retained much of its present extent at the last glacial maximum, may have been constricted to a few refugia during the Kansan glaciation. These refugia have been shown to have the highest
biodiversity as well as the wettest
climate.
*
Ice age*
Last Glacial Maximum*
PMIP*
Sea level rise*
Timeline of glaciation*
Ice core carbon dioxide content related to glaciation
