Category:Quaternary

The Quaternary Period is the geologic time unit from the end of the Pliocene  roughly 1.8-1.6 million years ago to the present.
 * The Quaternary includes 2 geologic/geochronologic subdivisions -- the Pleistocene and the Holocene Epochs.

In the ongoing revision of the international classification of geological time periods, the Quaternary was subsumed into the Neogene. The move has met with much resistance from geologists, also because the 'final' ratification by the International Geological Congress of the status of the Quaternary was scheduled in 2008. Because the discussions in the International Commission on Stratigraphy have not been finalized, this hierarchical repositioning was rather premature. Until this ratification has been taken place, the Quaternary is only provisionally part of the Neogene, not officially.