On the meaning of the terms “glaciation” and “interglacial” in the framework of studying paleoclimatic records from the Pleistocene continental and deep-water deposits

Abstract

The terms “glaciation” and “interglacial” are considered from the point of view of palaeoclimatic proxies obtained from the Pleistocene deep-water and continental deposits. It is shown that the crucial factor in substantiation of these notions is determination of the cause-and-effect mechanism in the considered climatic oscillations. It is noted that oxygen isotope data on deep-water deposits have an undoubted advantage because a more accurate quantitative estimate of climatic oscillation parameters can be made on their basis. It is concluded that the role played by quantitative estimates of palaeoclimatic changes, represented by, first of all, amplitude and time characteristics of climatic oscillations, will become more significant as the methods of paleogeographic studies of both continental and deep-water deposits of the Pleistocene improve; in contrast, the formal determination of the rank of palaeoclimatic oscillations will become less significant. Special attention is paid to the cases of misfits between the Pleistocene deep-water and continental paleoclimatic records and to the necessity to make them consistently as good as possible, especially in the case of Early Pleistocene deposits.