MIS 16, the first of the deep glacials
Ice reaches an extent it had never managed before, and the pattern for the next 600,000 years is set.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 55 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 10 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Marine Isotope Stage 16, around 676,000 to 621,000 years ago, is the first glacial of the new regime to reach the full severity that characterises the later Pleistocene — substantially colder and with far more ice than anything in the 41,000-year world. It marks the practical completion of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. From here on, every glacial maximum is a large one, and interglacials become brief warm interruptions rather than half the cycle.