The word is formed from two Ancient Greek words. Holos (ὅλος) is the Greek word for "whole". "Cene" comes from the Greek word kainos (καινός), meaning "new". The concept is that this epoch is "entirely new". The suffix '-cene' is … See more

The Holocene is a geologic epoch that follows directly after the Pleistocene. Continental motions due to plate tectonics are less than a kilometre over a span of only 10,000 years. However, ice melt caused world sea levels to rise about 35 m (115 ft) in the early … See more

Animal and plant life have not evolved much during the relatively short Holocene, but there have been major shifts in the richness and … See more

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a … See more

It is accepted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy that the Holocene started approximately 11,650 cal years See more

The climate throughout the Holocene has shown significant variability despite ice core records from Greenland suggesting a more stable climate following the preceding ice age. Marine chemical fluxes during the Holocene were lower than during the Younger … See more

The beginning of the Holocene corresponds with the beginning of the Mesolithic age in most of Europe. In regions such as the Middle East and Anatolia, the term Epipaleolithic is preferred in place of Mesolithic, as they refer to approximately the … See more