The cold period of geological period is usually characterized by low global average temperature and huge glacier coverage, and is often called the "Great Ice Age". The geological period of the earth experienced three major ice ages, namely the Sinian ice age 600 million years ago, the Carboniferous-Permian ice age 250 million years ago and the Quaternary ice age that began 2 million years ago. The interval of the Great Ice Age is about 200-300 million years, which is relatively warm, and it is called the "Great Interglacial Period".
The Great Ice Age was a period when large-scale glaciers appeared in geological history. Interglacial period is a period of climate warming between two interglacial periods. During the Great Ice Age, glaciers expanded or advanced on a large scale; During the Great Interglacial Period, glaciers melted and retreated.
The recorded Great Ice Age occurred three times with a period of nearly 300 million years. The first time happened at the end of Proterozoic about 800 million years ago, which was called the Sinian Great Ice Age. The second time occurred from Carboniferous to Permian about 300 million years ago, and the third Great Ice Age was the most famous Quaternary Great Ice Age, which had the greatest influence on the present.
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The geological period when the earth's surface is covered by large-scale glaciers is also called the ice age. The only relatively warm period between two glacial periods is called interglacial period. There have been many ice ages in the history of the earth, and the latest one is the Quaternary Ice Age.
This is an "ice age" (which spans tens of millions of years or even 200-300 million years), a period of persistent global low temperature and continental ice sheet extending to the equator. In Chinese mainland academic circles, the ice age is also called the "Great Ice Age". The period when the earth's climate warms between adjacent ice ages is called the "Great Interglacial Period". Four major ice ages in the history of the earth: Karoo Ice Age, Andean Sahara Ice Age, Wa Langille Ice Age and Huron Ice Age; The periods of alternating cold and warm in the ice age are called ice stage (or sub-ice age and ice age) and inter-ice stage (or inter-ice stage) respectively. The time scale is tens of thousands of years.
In the history of more than 4 billion years, the earth has experienced many significant cooling and ice ages. Especially the late Precambrian, Carboniferous-Permian and Cenozoic ice ages, are all geological events with long duration, usually called the Great Ice Age. The time scale of the Great Ice Age was at least several million years. During the Great Ice Age, there were many large-scale climate changes and periods of expansion or contraction of ice sheets, namely, the Ice Age and the Interglacial Age.