Could Atlantis be under Greenland's Ice?

[Bonecrusher]

No, it's Rand Flem-ath's theory, nothing to do with "Hollow Earth".

Well I'm not surprised I'm wrong again.

[Quaentum]

@Mario

Check out this article http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705153019.htm

There is a part in there where they show that the southern part of Greenland was last free of ice 450,000 years ago. That eliminates any posssibilty it was in a warmer climate during the time Atlantis was supposed to exist.

[Mario Dantas]

@Mario

Check out this article http://www.scienceda...70705153019.htm

There is a part in there where they show that the southern part of Greenland was last free of ice 450,000 years ago. That eliminates any posssibilty it was in a warmer climate during the time Atlantis was supposed to exist.

Quaentum,

I believe there is a general dating error in geochronology! 450.000 years ago are nothing compared with the sheer number of years (billions) back to the beginning of times. If a sizable event ever took place, the dating would be fundamentally wrong, period! But that is just me talking...

I hope you would agree that, *if* something as large as Atlantis ever disappeared from the north Atlantic, there would be some sort of change in the understanding of the geologic time scale. It is a logic conclusion, since Atlantis does not exist, as far as we know...

In my view that article only speaks volumes of an Atlantis in Greenland. Lush forests, huge amounts of mud, and furthermore, all this happened in the period of an "All land is ice". A Lushly forested environment thrived in Greenland when the ice was at its highest peak, in the Quaternary?

http://earthobservat...ology_IceCores/

Ice-core samples of ancient sediment

The icecap itself is comprised of pure ice, but the lower sections are mixed with mud from the bottom, and it was this mud that Eske Willerslev wanted to research.

http://www.scienceda...70705153019.htm

The mud within the ice is also totally coincident with Plato's Atlantis demise:

when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean.

http://classics.mit....to/critias.html

I have read some articles, about it, but it is still not known how it got there in the first place, rock sand and silt...

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited February 14, 2013 by Mario Dantas

[Quaentum]

IO find this part most interesting as it shows three different methods of measuring and thsy all agree

The ice-core researchers are experts at analysing the fine dust which blows onto the ice and is preserved year by year. They advocate two further datings.

One is dating by optically stimulated luminescence. It is a method where the examined minerals can be affected to give off a type of light, which depends on how long it has been since the minerals were last exposed to sunlight.

The other method is radioactive dating. "We can fix when the ice was last in contact with the atmosphere," says Jørgen Peder Steffensen who is a researcher in the Ice and Climate group at the Niles Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University. He explains that the special isotopes, Beryllium-10 and Chlorine-36 both have a particular half-life of radioactive decay (just like Carbon-14). The relation between them can date when the ice and dust were buried and no longer came in contact with the atmosphere.

The dating of dust particles also showed that it has been at least 450,000 years ago since the area of the DYE-3 drilling, in the southern part of Greenland, was ice-free.

[Abramelin]

That makes Greenland go out to the exit concerning it being "Atlantis".

Same with Crete/Thera, Antarctica, South America, Doggerland, and whatever location.

If we can't find it in the Atlantic, as Plato suggested where it should be, then it simply never existed.

[Mario Dantas]

Quaentum and Abramelin,

At last you struck a chord...

I will try to make an analogy, before the angle blade fall on my head!

If you hand scoop up a certain amount of snow, and you could establish a dating for the layers of snow that supposedly was dug, it would not mean that the snow accumulated there (on the shovel) since the beginning, right? the snow on the shovel did not fall on the shovel itself but was dug up from a certain "environment".

Likewise, Greenland's "shovel" shape (being surrounded by mountains and having a central plain), could have "scooped" an ancient ice that existed and confined it within its "walls"... Is it not strange that the actual age of the ice being around 100.000 years, is somewhat young, compared with "older" sediment samples found dating 18 million years...18 million years???

The Greenland ice sheet (Kalaallisut: Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometres (660,235 sq mi), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 metres (7,005 ft).^[1] The thickness is generally more than 2 km (1.24 mi) and over 3 km (1.86 mi) at its thickest point. It is not the only ice mass of Greenland – isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometres (29,344 and 38,610 sq mi) around the periphery. Some scientists predict that climate change may be near a "tipping point" where the entire ice sheet will melt in about 2000 years.^[2] If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (683,751 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft).^[3]

The Greenland Ice Sheet is also sometimes referred to under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. It is also sometimes referred to as an ice cap. "Ice sheet" is considered the more correct term, as "ice cap" generally refers to less extensive ice masses.^{[citation needed]}

The ice in the current ice sheet is as old as 110,000 years.^[4] The presence of ice-rafted sediments in deep-sea cores recovered off of northeast Greenland, in the Fram Strait, and south of Greenland indicated the more or less continuous presence of either an ice sheet or ice sheets covering significant parts of Greenland for the last 18 million years. From just before 11 million years ago to a little after 10 million years ago, the Greenland Ice Sheet appears to have been greatly reduced in size. The Greenland Ice Sheet formed in the middle Miocene by coalescence of ice caps and glaciers. There was an intensification of glaciation during the Late Pliocene.^[5]

The weight of the ice has depressed the central area of Greenland; the bedrock surface is near sea level over most of the interior of Greenland, but mountains occur around the periphery, confining the sheet along its margins. If the ice disappeared, Greenland would most probably appear as an archipelago, at least until isostasy lifted the land surface above sea level once again. The ice surface reaches its greatest altitude on two north-south elongated domes, or ridges. The southern dome reaches almost 3,000 metres (9,843 ft) at latitudes 63°–65°N; the northern dome reaches about 3,290 metres (10,794 ft) at about latitude 72°N. The crests of both domes are displaced east of the centre line of Greenland. The unconfined ice sheet does not reach the sea along a broad front anywhere in Greenland, so that no large ice shelves occur. The ice margin just reaches the sea, however, in a region of irregular topography in the area of Melville Bay southeast of Thule. Large outlet glaciers, which are restricted tongues of the ice sheet, move through bordering valleys around the periphery of Greenland to calve off into the ocean, producing the numerous icebergs that sometimes occur in North Atlantic shipping lanes. The best known of these outlet glaciers is Jakobshavn Isbræ (Kalaallisut: Sermeq Kujalleq), which, at its terminus, flows at speeds of 20 to 22 metres or 65.6 to 72.2 feet per day.

http://en.wikipedia....nland_ice_sheet

I spent one day trying to make time to answer this (and think about it too)... the ice part is one hell of impeachment, i know. But this is what i can say right now....

How come 30 m of silty ice exist underneath Greenland's ice? Why isn't there any whatsoever soil between the ice and the bedrock? Was there something that "strired" things up?

As the drill neared the bottom it began to bring up "silty ice" that had mud and small pebbles entrained within. After about 30 meters of silty ice had been extracted, the drill encountered bedrock and was able to bore into the rock and bring up samples(...)

http://mikespage13.t...gram/index.html

Figure 3 shows a cross-section of Greenland, with part of the ice cut away (exaggerated vertical scale). Unlike the Arctic sea ice, this ice is sitting on rock

http://co2.cms.udel....SeaLevel_DE.htm

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited February 16, 2013 by Mario Dantas

[Mario Dantas]

That makes Greenland go out to the exit concerning it being "Atlantis".

Same with Crete/Thera, Antarctica, South America, Doggerland, and whatever location.

If we can't find it in the Atlantic, as Plato suggested where it should be, then it simply never existed.

Abramelin,

The question we should ask is not actually where it was but where it is now, because according to Plato it moved somewhere, disappearing from where it once stood.

Wegener's arguments led to heated controversy about continental drift in the 1920's and 1930's. Opponents regarded the idea of continents moving about through solid rock as so preposterous that they ignored all his other arguments, many of which, it is now clear, were essentially correct.

http://www.platetectonics.com/article.asp?a=18

Regards,

Mario Dantas

[Abramelin]

Abramelin,

The question we should ask is not actually where it was but where it is now, because according to Plato it moved somewhere, disappearing from where it once stood.

http://www.platetect...rticle.asp?a=18

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Yes, Plato indeed said it moved... to below sea level, not sailed to the north and remain above seal level.

You compare the 'opposition' against your theory with the opposition Wegener received, but at least he did come up with a sound theory.

This is not just about people resisting a new theory, it's about a theory that doesn't explain what is supposed to have happened.

And again I say: if Greenland did move from in front of the Strait of Gibraltar to where it is now, we would most probably have discovered traces of large scale devastation around the Atlantic.

[Quaentum]

Quaentum and Abramelin,

At last you struck a chord...

I will try to make an analogy, before the angle blade fall on my head!

If you hand scoop up a certain amount of snow, and you could establish a dating for the layers of snow that supposedly was dug, it would not mean that the snow accumulated there (on the shovel) since the beginning, right? the snow on the shovel did not fall on the shovel itself but was dug up from a certain "environment".

Likewise, Greenland's "shovel" shape (being surrounded by mountains and having a central plain), could have "scooped" an ancient ice that existed and confined it within its "walls"... Is it not strange that the actual age of the ice being around 100.000 years, is somewhat young, compared with "older" sediment samples found dating 18 million years...18 million years???

http://en.wikipedia....nland_ice_sheet

I spent one day trying to make time to answer this (and think about it too)... the ice part is one hell of impeachment, i know. But this is what i can say right now....

How come 30 m of silty ice exist underneath Greenland's ice? Why isn't there any whatsoever soil between the ice and the bedrock? Was there something that "strired" things up?

http://mikespage13.t...gram/index.html

http://co2.cms.udel....SeaLevel_DE.htm

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Your scoop analogy isn't valid because approximately 95% of Greenland's coast is raised at least 500 m (1600+ ft). Even if Greenland were moving, because most of the coast is raised, it wouldn't scoop up the Ice on the water but would just push it aside.

It is also invalidated due to insects in the core sample being 450,000 years old. If Greenland were scooping ice, the insects would be around 12,000 years old.

[Abramelin]

It is also invalidated due to insects in the core sample being 450,000 years old. If Greenland were scooping ice, the insects would be around 12,000 years old.

I think that alone should settle it.

[Quaentum]

I think that alone should settle it.

One would think.

[dadatheking]

Atlantis is Antarctica. but it was flash frozen. look it up that is all......................................

[Abramelin]

We "looked it up", and we read Rand Flem-Ath's book (I have his book, btw), and it is a nice theory, but it doesn't take into account the results of the latest ice core and rock samples.

That aside of Antarctica not being in front of the Pillars of Hercules.

Or not submerged.

.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Abramelin

[Mario Dantas]

Yes, Plato indeed said it moved... to below sea level, not sailed to the north and remain above seal level.

You compare the 'opposition' against your theory with the opposition Wegener received, but at least he did come up with a sound theory.

This is not just about people resisting a new theory, it's about a theory that doesn't explain what is supposed to have happened.

And again I say: if Greenland did move from in front of the Strait of Gibraltar to where it is now, we would most probably have discovered traces of large scale devastation around the Atlantic.

Abrameilin,

In the words of Herman Melville, in «Moby Dick»: “I try all things, I achieve what I can.”

Yes, i am aware of the many problems with my theory or whatever you want to call it. I think i am simply trying to follow a path...

My «theory» exists within the thought experiment i am trying to construct. It is not a nice full package, but i guess i am making progresses. My theory predicts a great deal of structural geologic systems. It is fully based on scientific data, Plato aside...

There is an explanation for everything, believe me, Whether people like it or not, there will be known that a large island stood in front og Gibraltar! If Greenland moved from the straits to where it is now located, as you put it, there would not only be traces of large scale devastation around the Atlantic (again in your words), but also «traces» of this devastation all over the planet, and there are.

You will probably laugh, if i tell you that not everything has been said here regarding the «theorization» of an Atlantis in Greenland. I have no time to put my thoughts together, i am still researching for a definite evidence.

The davastation which you referred is such a collossal «pit» that i just can't seem to be able to think about it, at times. Sea levels rose 120 m at the end of the Pleistocene, that should be the smoking gun...

Regards,

Mario Dantas

[Mario Dantas]

Your scoop analogy isn't valid because approximately 95% of Greenland's coast is raised at least 500 m (1600+ ft). Even if Greenland were moving, because most of the coast is raised, it wouldn't scoop up the Ice on the water but would just push it aside.

It is also invalidated due to insects in the core sample being 450,000 years old. If Greenland were scooping ice, the insects would be around 12,000 years old.

I do not know why you got that idea, but IMO since throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (during the Quaternary glaciation) the existing ice reached thicknesses of 4 km, thus, it would seem rather credible for Greenland to have «scooped up»:a large portion of that ancient ice.

Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the Last Glacial Maximum. The creation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets caused a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

Regarding the bugs trapped within the ice, i disagree that they would be only as old as 12.000 years. Whatever got trapped would become and actually is an unsuspitioned part of the old whole Pleistocenic ice that existed, and consequently, all the dating could have been done on samples that were ripped off from the larger body of ice, as i had stated in the analogy.

Regards,

Mario Dantas

[Mario Dantas]

Quaetum,

When you say:

Your scoop analogy isn't valid because approximately 95% of Greenland's coast is raised at least 500 m (1600+ ft). Even if Greenland were moving, because most of the coast is raised, it wouldn't scoop up the Ice on the water but would just push it aside.

It is also invalidated due to insects in the core sample being 450,000 years old. If Greenland were scooping ice, the insects would be around 12,000 years old.

I do not know why you got that idea, but IMO since throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (during the Quaternary glaciation) the existing ice reached thicknesses of 4 km, thus, it would seem rather credible for Greenland to have «scooped up»:a large portion of that ancient ice.

Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The creation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets caused a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft).

http://en.wikipedia....nary_glaciation

Regarding the bugs trapped within the ice, i disagree that they would be only as old as 12.000 years. Whatever got trapped would become and actually is an unsuspitioned part of the old whole Pleistocenic ice that existed, and consequently, all the dating could have been done on samples that were ripped off from the larger body of ice, as i had stated in the analogy.

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited February 22, 2013 by Mario Dantas

[Quaentum]

Quaetum,

When you say:

I do not know why you got that idea, but IMO since throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (during the Quaternary glaciation) the existing ice reached thicknesses of 4 km, thus, it would seem rather credible for Greenland to have «scooped up»:a large portion of that ancient ice.

Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The creation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets caused a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft).

http://en.wikipedia....nary_glaciation

Regarding the bugs trapped within the ice, i disagree that they would be only as old as 12.000 years. Whatever got trapped would become and actually is an unsuspitioned part of the old whole Pleistocenic ice that existed, and consequently, all the dating could have been done on samples that were ripped off from the larger body of ice, as i had stated in the analogy.

Regards,

Mario Dantas

The LGM happened about 18,000 BCE. BY 10,000 BCE (When Atlantis supposedly sank beneath the waves) the ice age was over and the glaciers had retreated to their normal positions. If Greenland had moved as you said, it would have encountered only the normal ice which can be found on the ocean and not 4km thick glaciers

Insects do not live in the middle of the Atlantic as there is nothing for them to eat and no where for them to reproduce. So any insects that would be under the ice would be the ones that already existed on Greenland and would only be as old as when the ice formed on Greenland, which should be about 10,000 BCE (12,000 years ago), if Greenland were indeed Atlantis and not 450,000 years ago.

Two more problems with your scoop theory:

1 - Ice, large enough to have been pushed onto Greenland, would have caused massive erosion to the northern mountains as it passed over and between them. This erosion is not visible.

2 - Ice pusing onto the northern part of Greenland would tend to accumulate there and it is there that it should be thickest, but the thickest part is actually in the center of the island.

[D2thaShizzle]

Plato first wrote about Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. Plato lived 424 BC to 348 BC. With that in mind, also consider that Greenland's first Norse settlement started in AD 986. The gap in the timeframe does not do well for your idea. It's an interesting thought, I recommend researching it.

[Mario Dantas]

The LGM happened about 18,000 BCE. BY 10,000 BCE (When Atlantis supposedly sank beneath the waves) the ice age was over and the glaciers had retreated to their normal positions. If Greenland had moved as you said, it would have encountered only the normal ice which can be found on the ocean and not 4km thick glaciers

Insects do not live in the middle of the Atlantic as there is nothing for them to eat and no where for them to reproduce. So any insects that would be under the ice would be the ones that already existed on Greenland and would only be as old as when the ice formed on Greenland, which should be about 10,000 BCE (12,000 years ago), if Greenland were indeed Atlantis and not 450,000 years ago.

Two more problems with your scoop theory:

1 - Ice, large enough to have been pushed onto Greenland, would have caused massive erosion to the northern mountains as it passed over and between them. This erosion is not visible.

2 - Ice pusing onto the northern part of Greenland would tend to accumulate there and it is there that it should be thickest, but the thickest part is actually in the center of the island.

Quaentum,

I am sorry it took this long to answer...

You bring interesting new interrogations to this “dialog”, thank you for your input. Nevertheless, it is my opinion you are too attached to details, which forcibly prevents you from seeing the big picture.

When you refer to the LGM as having occurred 18.000 years and not 10.000 years ago, i remind you that this is supposed to be a “timeless” experiment, thus, small age differences (in the order of thousands of years between the end of the Pleistocene and the Holocene) should not be taken under consideration, furthermore, the dating should be necessarily different (wrong), because the planet did not evolve as gradually as we tend to think (for want of a definite proof).

Regarding insects found under the ice, all i can say is that i misunderstood what you said at first, but chances are those results are also adulterated, by means of a disturbing event that provoked a “shoal of mud” underneath Greenland’s inland ice:

GRIP/GISP

See main articles: GRIP, GISP

The GRIP and GISP cores, each about 3000 m long, were drilled by European and US teams respectively on the summit of Greenland. Their usable record stretches back more than 100,000 years into the last interglacial. They agree (in the climatic history recovered) to a few metres above bedrock. However, the lowest portion of these cores cannot be interpreted, probably due to disturbed flow close to the bedrock.[27] There is evidence the GISP2 cores contain an increasing structural disturbance which casts suspicion on features lasting centuries or more in the bottom 10% of the ice sheet.[28] The more recent NorthGRIP ice core provides an undisturbed record to approx. 123,000 years before present. The results indicate that Holocene climate has been remarkably stable and have confirmed the occurrence of rapid climatic variation during the last ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

in the same vein:

The Greenland ice sheet did not develop at all until the late Pliocene, but apparently developed very rapidly with the first continental glaciation. This had the unusual effect of allowing fossils of plants that once grew on present-day Greenland to be much better preserved than with the slowly forming Antarctic ice sheet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-sheet

Continuing...

I had read before about north Greenland, but my main interest lie further down south, where i propose the Cape Verde islands to have been attached, since the beginning of times.

I roughly studied the southern part of Greenland and worked out possible models (notice the Ketilidian mobile belt in the south of Greenland(f), which is exactly the same size and located where i propose the Cape Verde islands to have existed in the past, as a part of the larger island).

Relation between the Cabo Verde Islands and South of Greenland (2010)

https://plus.google.com/photos/106047243612755133722/albums/5484554744863948769

Contrary to what you propose, the northern part of Greenland is known for its gravel banks, and therefore i should presume that it could be the byproduct of erosive processes (hidden from our knowledge) other than the extensive glacial erosion activity. Gravel and silt are profusely distributed in temporary islands. I ask, is there not a great coincidence that these things happen?

Why aren’t there high mountains in the north of Greenland (only one out of the highest 100’s) as in the rest of the island?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountains_in_Greenland

Regarding Greenland’s center being too high where it “should” be lower, in all honesty, i never thought about it, until now that you mentioned it. I am sure there is a *logic* explanation.

Sorry again for replying this late. These posts are very important to me and i do not usually have the time to think and research properly into the subjects you bring up. As i said, i have read plenty of material regarding a great deal of scientific fields. Unfortunately, i am not able to articulate as i wished, on all of the subjects i am studying (if any).

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited February 28, 2013 by Mario Dantas

[aryannatimothy]

Great thread. I always fascinate Atlantis and how beautiful its civiliation is as much as the place. I must also agree that there are tons of information about the location of Atlantis but there are no proven facts that this place did exist. Perhaps the very mystery kept a lot of people to wonder where Atlantis is really located or is it true in the first place.

[Mario Dantas]

Plato first wrote about Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. Plato lived 424 BC to 348 BC. With that in mind, also consider that Greenland's first Norse settlement started in AD 986. The gap in the timeframe does not do well for your idea. It's an interesting thought, I recommend researching it.

D2thaShizzle,

Why is the gap you mention, a problem to my theory? Sorry i did not understand...

Regards,

Mario Dantas

[Nean]

If it is we won't find anything, the glaciers will grind it to bits.

Sundaland seems a lot more plausible. We even have the evidence of roads and buildings, and it would have been entirely above water 10000BC . Maybe Mu and Atlantis are the same thing?

As far as advanced goes, compared to what? Compared to ancient Greece, maybe. If someone else made tech comparable to moder then they'd have left tons of signs, not the least of which being huge amounts of CO2 in the ancient ice cores.

[Abramelin]

If it is we won't find anything, the glaciers will grind it to bits.

Sundaland seems a lot more plausible. We even have the evidence of roads and buildings, and it would have been entirely above water 10000BC . Maybe Mu and Atlantis are the same thing?

As far as advanced goes, compared to what? Compared to ancient Greece, maybe. If someone else made tech comparable to moder then they'd have left tons of signs, not the least of which being huge amounts of CO2 in the ancient ice cores.

I'd like to see that evidence.

[Nean]

Let me google that for you bro...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland

I shouldn't say 'evidence' but actual roads and buildings. It's surprising more attention hasn't been paid to this.

[Mario Dantas]

Quaternary geologists win timescale vote

Redefinition rescues once-threatened terminology from extinction.

Amanda Leigh Mascarelli

J. BLAIR/CORBIS

In 2006, astronomers reached a decision on the planetary status of Pluto; now, geologists may have done the same for the status of the Quaternary, the time period in which humans evolved and live today. But, as was the case with Pluto, resolving this long-standing controversy has left some researchers feeling alienated.

The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) has elected to formally define the base of the Quaternary at 2.6 million years before present, and also to lower the base of the Pleistocene — an epoch that encompasses the most recent glaciations — from its historical position at 1.8 million years to 2.6 million years ago. The decision, finalized on 21 May, will now be passed to the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification, which is expected in the next month or two.

The vote shifts an 800,000-year slice, formerly part of the Pliocene epoch, into the Pleistocene. "It's kind of a land grab," says Philip Gibbard, a geologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, who has fought for the redefinition since 2001. "But we see it as just putting straight a mistake that was made 25–30 years ago."

In 1985, the beginning of the Pleistocene was defined at 1.8 million years ago, calibrated to an outcropping of marine strata in southern Italy. But some geologists have long felt that was a localized, arbitrary boundary that did not reflect worldwide changes — and argued instead for the 2.6-million-year mark, when the entire planet cooled.

The term Quaternary was adopted in the early 1800s, when geologists divvied up fossil records of Earth's history into four periods: the Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary. The first two terms were discarded long ago, and although Tertiary is still sometimes used, in recent decades some geologists came to consider the Quaternary an outmoded relic. In 2004, a major publication left the Quaternary out of the ICS timescale altogether, making it vulnerable to extinction from scientific nomenclature. In place of the Quaternary, it extended the prior 'Neogene', which began 23 million years ago, up to the present. The Quaternary community went into open revolt.

"The geologic timescale is fundamental for expressing the history of the Earth," says Stan Finney, a geologist at California State University in Long Beach and chair of the ICS. "This is our clock — we need the units of our timescale and their boundaries to be precisely defined."

http://www.nature.co...ll/459624a.html

Edited March 8, 2013 by Mario Dantas