Glacial History

About every 200 million years the Earth experiences a major period of ice activity – a glaciation.

The most recent of these started about 2 million years ago and finished (*) about 10,000 years ago.

A glaciation consists of glacials (cold periods ) separated by interglacials (warmer periods).

* Some people believe we are still in an interglacial!

About 30% of the world was covered by glacial ice when the glaciation was at its maximum.

The UK was covered by ice between 1-3kms thick as far south as a line from London to Bristol.

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