Many of the most recent glacial deposits scarcely show the incipient soil development begun under humid conditions only a few thousand years ago.
Worldwide, the most recent glacial period, or ice age, culminated about 21,000 years ago in what is often called the Last Glacial Maximum.
However, integrated summer radiation, which is what counts in ice-sheet melting3, has deviated by less than 10% from present-day values over the most recent glacial cycle (Fig. 1b), and it is not obvious why this has elicited such a large shift in global climate.
In addition, the warming period that directly followed the most recent glacial episode (which ended approximately 11,700 years ago) was marked by rivers flowing with melted ice water, buried chunks of ice that melted and formed kettle lakes, large lakes that formed in low areas inland, sea margins that moved inland, and coastal water tables that generally rose with the sea.
The record of ice-volume changes in oxygen isotopes, calibrated to sites on oceanic islands, implies that at the peak of the most recent glacial stage 18,000 calendar years ago, sea level was some 120 metres (390 feet) lower than today's.
The timing could be consistent with very early translocation events, but could also be consistent with the establishment of refugia during the most recent glacial period (~110 12 Ka), as proposed for various other species (Warmuth et al., 2011, Palkopoulou et al., 2013, Weir et al., 2016).
Mitochondrial DNA sequence data has revealed that Adélie penguin numbers in East Antarctica increased 135-fold during the most recent glacial-interglacial transition.
Black Point, today on the north shore of Mono Lake, is a flattened volcanic cone of basaltic debris that formed under the surface of a much deeper Mono Lake about 13,300 years ago, during the most-recent glacial period.
The divergence time of populations was estimated to early, middle and most recent Pleistocene glacial events.
Wisconsin Glacial Stage, most recent major division of Pleistocene time and deposits in North America (from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).
The topology of Scandinavia has been strongly influenced by recent climactic events related to its most recent deglaciation after the last glacial maximum approximately 11-10,000 calibrated years before present (ybp) [ 22, 23].
