• Fenced at least five major ice ages throughout its 4.5-billion-year history. An “ice age” refers to a long interval (millions of years) during which global temperatures are cold enough for permanent ice sheets to exist.
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  • Major Ice Ages in Earth’s History
  • Huronian Ice Age (2.4–2.1 billion years ago): The oldest-known ice age, potentially the first “Snowball Earth,” where the entire planet froze.
  • Cryogenian Ice Age (720–630 million years ago): Likely the most severe; ice sheets may have reached the equator.
  • Andean-Saharan Ice Age (460–420 million years ago): Occurred during the Late Ordovician and Silurian periods, coinciding with a mass extinction.
  • Kazoo Ice Age (360–260 million years ago): Named after glacial tills in South Africa, this period saw extensive ice cover across the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland.
  • Quaternary Ice Age (2.6 million years ago–present): Technically, Earth is currently in an ice age because ice sheets still exist in Antarctica and Greenland.
  • Glacial and Interglacial Periods
  • Within an ice age, the climate fluctuates between “glacial” (colder periods of ice advance) and “interglacial” (warmer periods of ice retreat).
  • Last Glacial Period: Colloquially known as “The Ice Age,” it began approximately 115,000 years ago and ended 11,700 years ago.
  • Last Glacial Maximum (LGM): The peak of the previous cold period, occurring roughly 26,000 to 20,000 years ago.
  • Little Ice Age (c. 1300–1850 AD): A more recent, smaller cooling event that primarily affected the Northern Hemisphere.
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  1. Bcc. 2600000 BCE—c. 12000 BCE
  2. The Pleistocene epoch, ranging from c. 2.6 million years ago until c. 12,000 years ago. It is characterized by repeated cycles of glacial and interglacial periods.
  3. c. 26500 BCE—c. 19000 BCE
  4. Last Glacial Maximum—the time during which the ice sheets reached peak growth within the most recent glacial period.
  5. c. 11700 BCE
  6. End of the most recent glacial episode within the current Quaternary Ice Age. 1837 CE