John A. Van Couvering – författare

The Pleistocene Boundary and the Beginning of the Quaternary presents the results of a forty-year international program to establish a precise definition for the most important boundary in geologic time - the beginning of the modern age of glacial climates. This book, the final report of International Geological Correlation Project 41, describes the selection of a fixed reference point in the sequence of deep-water marine strata exposed at Vrica, Italy. This point, dated to 1.81 million years before the present, coincides with the onset of the first of four major glacial phases. The opening chapters of the book document the geology and palaeontology of the agreed physical reference point, and the successful proposal of this point as the boundary-stratotype of the Pleistocene Epoch. The book then describes the correlation of the boundary throughout the ocean basins and continents of the world in terms of detailed stratigraphic criteria such as planktonic biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy and radiometric age determinations.

This book, based on papers from a symposium at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, shows the necessity of developing a new philosophy in place of the classical uniformitarianism based only on processes familiar in human experience. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.