Ice Age and the Geographical Formations

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Stories of Our Earth: Ice Ages and Their Impact on Geography Just a couple weeks ago, we were complaining how winter was so cold and how it would never end in Canada; but imagine living in the glacial period, where there was a time when glaciers, large masses of ice, covered a huge portion of the Earth’s surface. Studies show that the polar ice caps, as we know them today used to cover approximately 30% of the Earth during our last Ice Age. The Earth remained in this state for thousands and thousands of years. Cold, right? According to geologists, there have been an approximate total of 5 major ice ages. They began appearing roughly 2, 300, 000 years ago, up until the most recent one, approximately 10,000 years ago; it was the ice age period/glacial period, and that’s was exactly what happened. Ice Ages are points in time when the temperatures around the world, including the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth, were cold consistently for a span of over multiple thousand years. Unlike the average temperature of 220C we have now, the ice ages were much colder, having an average of approximately 50C. Although geographers don’t all agree on one theory as to why the ice ages may have happened, there are a couple theories that many believe could have caused the beginning of the ice ages. One of the leading theories for the cause for ice age involves the idea of another theory, the plate tectonics theory, which proposes that the Earth’s surface, which are divided into plates, are constantly moving. The theory suggests that the plates of the Earth moved away from the equator where it is generally warm, and towards a colder place, an area where the sun’s rays were not very strong, which made land very cold. This is a logical theory be... ... middle of paper ... ...rumlins http://allyouneedtoknowaboutglaciers.weebly.com/stratified-drift.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/glacial_landscapes/glaciation_rev2.shtml http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/why_4_cool_periods.html http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_iceage.htm http://geography.howstuffworks.com/terms-and-associations/ice-age2.htm http://geography.howstuffworks.com/terms-and-associations/ice-age.htm http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/iceage.html https://www.google.com/search?q=glaciation+definition&oq=glaciation+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57.4046j0j1&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=glaciers+definition http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/?q=outreach/geology-resources/end-moraines-end-glacial-ridehttp://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/?q=outreach/geology-resources/end-moraines-end-glacial-ride http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/glacial+drift

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