What is an Ice Age?
Ice Ages were periods when large parts of the Earth’s surface were covered by sheets of ice. Each Ice Age has lasted about 100,000 years, with gaps between of up to 20,000 years when the weather was warmer and the ice melted. The last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago. Ice ages appear in groups in geological time, each lasting for 20 to 50 million years. The oldest known glacial periods were as long as 2.3 billion years ago. A minor ice age began in the 1500s and lasted for 300 years, during which glaciers were more widespread than at any time for thousands of years.
Picture credit: google
Gigantic waterfall!
More than five million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea was a dry basin. Then, movements in the Earth’s crust opened up the Straits of Gibraltar between the land masses of Europe and Africa. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean poured through the gap, flooding the basin. The result was the creation of a gigantic waterfall, at least 800 m high, which let through so much water that the whole of the Mediterranean filled up in few years.
Picture credit: google