Rivers and the valleys that they occupy were affected strongly by the changing climates of the Pleistocene. River channels and their sediment record are controlled in large part by the amount and type of load that is supplied by their drainage basins and the discharge or quantity of water available for flow. Both are closely related to climate, which not only includes precipitation, evaporation, and seasonality but also controls the extent of the vegetative cover of the land and the type and intensity of weathering processes. In addition, because of sea-level changes related to glaciation, the base level of rivers in coastal regions also fluctuated by significant amounts. As a result, river environments were dynamic and variable.

This was true for most rivers, but particularly so for those rivers that drained large quantities of meltwater and sediment from the glacier margins. During glaciation, rivers of the latter kind developed braided-channel patterns in response to the input of large quantities of sediment derived from the melting glaciers and subglacial waters and to the large fluctuations in the quantity of water flowing at any one time, which varied because of seasonal and diurnal controls on the generation of meltwater. During times of glaciation many of these rivers deposited thick sequences of sand and gravel in their valleys; examples include those of the Hudson, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers in the United States and of the Thames, Elbe, Rhine, and Seine rivers in Europe. Similar valleys have been buried by younger glacial deposits and are no longer evident at the surface. They exist today as bedrock valleys with thick fills of fluvial sand and gravel or lacustrine silt in localities where lakes existed in the valleys as a result of glacial damming. The sand and gravel fill in the surface valleys provide aggregate material for construction, and much groundwater is derived from the fills of both surface and buried valleys.

Some glacial valleys, as well as large upland areas, were sites of major catastrophic floods that resulted from the sudden drainage of proglacial and subglacial lakes. Such floods are known as jökulhlaups, an Icelandic term for subglacial lake outbursts. The largest and best-known floods of this type occurred in the Channeled Scabland of the Columbia Plateau region in eastern Washington state. Ice tongues flowing south from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet periodically dammed the Clark Fork River, forming glacial Lake Missoula. At times, Lake Missoula stretched more than 200 km (124 miles) upvalley and was about 600 metres (about 1,970 feet) deep near the ice dam. Sudden failure of the ice dam released over 2,000 cubic km (about 480 cubic miles) of water, which flooded westward and southward across the Columbia Plateau and down the Columbia River valley. The floods cut through a loess cover into basalt and left a system of large dry channels with waterfalls, potholes, and longitudinal grooves in the basalt. Associated with the dry channels are huge, coarse gravel bars and giant current ripples. Other large catastrophic floods resulted from the sudden drainage of glacial Lake Agassiz and from the ancestral Great Lakes, as well as from some nonglacial lakes such as Lake Bonneville in the Great Basin (see above). During the Anglian–Elsterian glaciation in Europe a large ice-dammed lake formed in the North Sea, and large overflows from it initiated cutting of the Dover Straits.

During the transition from glacial to interglacial conditions, river channel patterns evolved from braided to meandering as a result of decreased load and possibly discharge. Near glaciated areas, rivers eroded into glacial outwash and left a system of stream terraces along the sides of most valleys. These modern interglacial rivers are much smaller than their glacial counterparts and are underfit (i.e., appear too small) with respect to the large valleys in which they flow. In contrast, near coastal areas rivers actively built up their channels during the transition to interglacial conditions in response to rising sea level.

Coastal environments and sea-level changes

Coastal environments during the Pleistocene were controlled in large part by the fluctuating level of the sea as well as by local tectonic and environmental conditions. As a result of the many glaciations on land and the subsequent release of meltwater during interglacial times, sea level has fluctuated almost continuously between interglacial levels, like those of today, and levels during times of maximum glaciation, such as 18,000 years ago when sea level was more than 100 metres (328 feet) lower. At that time all the continental land areas were larger, and extensive areas of the world’s continental shelves were exposed to weathering, soil formation, and fluvial and eolian activity and were inhabited by plants and animals. The Bering Shelf was exposed at this time and Siberia was connected to Alaska by a land bridge, thus allowing intercontinental migration of animals, including early human beings. Rapid melting of the last large ice sheets resulted in a rising sea level that reached near modern level by the mid-Holocene, about 5,000 years ago. As a consequence, Pleistocene coastal environments are submerged below sea level in most parts of the world and are poorly known.

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primate: Pleistocene

Fortunately some coastal areas of the world were undergoing tectonic uplift during the Pleistocene, and as a result older shorelines and their deposits are exposed above modern sea level. Study of these deposits is important in understanding the recent sea-level record and in relating it to the record of glaciation. The most important are shorelines that contain coral reefs, because it is possible to obtain radiometric ages on fossils in the reef complex. Two of the most important and best-dated records are on the island of Barbados in the Caribbean and along the Huron Peninsula of New Guinea. The latter area exposes a spectacular suite of coastal terraces due to steady and rapid uplift during the Pleistocene. Age determinations of the terraces indicate times of relatively high sea level and suggest that they occurred at intervals of about 20,000 years. The highest sea level prior to the modern level occurred about 125,000 years ago and correlates with the peak warm interval of the last interglaciation (oxygen-18 stage 5e). Sea level at that time was about 6 metres (19.6 feet) higher than it is today.

Eolian activity

Eolian deposits are important in the Pleistocene record and indicate widespread wind action at certain times and in certain areas of the world. Mention has already been made of the importance of loess–paleosol records in working out regional chronologies and paleoclimatic history. Loess blankets large portions of the central and northwestern United States, Alaska, the east European plain of Russia, and southern Europe, where it is closely related to episodes of glaciation or to the cold periglacial climate beyond the ice sheet margins or to both. The loess was derived primarily from the broad floodplains of the braided rivers draining meltwater and sediment away from the glaciers as well as from newly exposed glacial drift. Locally, sand dunes and sheets of sand occur near the valley sources and in some cases cover large upland areas, as in central and northern Europe. The loess in China, on the other hand, is considered to have been deflated mostly from such desert areas as the Gobi.

The deserts of the subtropical regions also experienced eolian activity during the Pleistocene. In Australia, the time of peak aridity and maximum dune activity (about 20,000 to 12,000 years ago) correlates with the time of peak glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere. This also was the case in the Sahara and other deserts in Africa, India, and the Middle East. One estimate is that the tropical arid zones were five times larger during times of peak glaciation. Sea level was lower at these times, the water was colder, and tropical cyclones were less extensive, resulting in decreased rainfall. These episodes of intensified eolian activity are recorded in other Pleistocene records. Ocean cores taken downwind of these regions contain windblown sediment in the portions of the core that accumulated during times of maximum eolian activity. In addition, microparticles occur in ice cores taken from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and are concentrated at times of maximum glaciation and aridity in the subtropical deserts. At other times, the climate was less arid and the desert areas contracted, and vegetation developed to stabilize the dunes under more humid (pluvial) conditions.

Tectonic and isostatic movements

The lithospheric plates continued to shift during the Pleistocene, but the continents essentially were in their modern position at the start of the epoch. Of more importance to subsequent Quaternary events were the late Tertiary tectonic movements that affected the evolution of climate toward that of the Quaternary. Among these were the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, which affected oceanic circulation, and the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and broad regional areas of the western United States, which affected atmospheric circulation, particularly the position and configuration of the polar jet stream.

Vertical movements of Earth’s crust also were caused by the formation and melting of large ice sheets. The area beneath an ice sheet subsides during glaciation because the crust is not able to sustain the weight of the glacier. These isostatic movements take place through the flow of material in Earth’s mantle, and the amount of subsidence amounts to about one-third the thickness of the ice sheet—for example, about 1 km (0.6 mile) in the central area of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in Canada. Melting of the ice sheet removes the load and causes the ground to rise, or rebound. Such uplift is rapid at first but decreases with time. More than 300 metres (984.2 feet) of uplift has occurred in the eastern Hudson Bay area since that area was deglaciated. Substantial uplifting also took place prior to the complete melting of the ice sheets, and upward crustal movement continues today at a maximum rate of about 1.3 cm (0.5 inch) per year. A similar record of glacio-isostatic adjustments is encountered in Fennoscandia, where the greatest depression and subsequent uplift related to the Scandinavian Ice Sheet is located in the Gulf of Bothnia.