glacial period

British  

noun

1. any period of time during which a large part of the earth's surface was covered with ice, due to the advance of glaciers, as in the late Carboniferous period, and during most of the Pleistocene; glaciation

2. (often capitals) the Pleistocene epoch

---

Example Sentences

However, they occurred less frequently in the penultimate glacial period than in the last one: "The temperature peaks are twice as far apart from one another, meaning there were longer cold phases between them."

From Science Daily • Feb. 12, 2024

Scientists know that around 200,000 years ago Earth was experiencing a glacial period and our ancestors were migrating out of Africa.

From New York Times • Nov. 22, 2021

But today’s melting and large-scale sediment flushing is happening much faster than what would occur at the end of a glacial period, she adds.

From Scientific American • Oct. 28, 2021

Formed during the late Pleistocene, the Earth’s last glacial period, which ended about 11,700 years ago, Yedoma consists of thick layers of soil packed around gigantic lodes of embedded ice.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 4, 2019

During the last or Pleistocene glacial period the evidence in America and Europe indicates that the inter-glacial epochs varied in length and that the later ones were shorter than the earlier.

From Climatic Changes Their Nature and Causes by Huntington, Ellsworth