The Late Paleozoic Ice Age ends
After a hundred million years, the ice sheets finally vanish — and will not return for 200 million.
- When
- Known to
- ± 5 million years
- Era
- Permian, Paleozoic
Gondwanan glaciation, which had persisted in pulses since the latest Devonian, ceases around 260 million years ago as carbon dioxide rises and Pangaea drifts north. The planet enters a long greenhouse state with no permanent polar ice, which lasts through the Mesozoic until the Cenozoic cooling begins. It is the end of the most severe icehouse of the Phanerozoic.