Danube or Donau is a timespan in the glacial history of the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

. Danube is currently regarded to have started approximately 1.8 million years ago, at the start of the Calabrian age of the international

geochronology Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments using signatures inherent in the rocks themselves. Absolute geochronology can be accomplished through radioactive isotopes, whereas relative geochronology is pr ...

. It ended approximately one million years ago. Deep sea core samples have identified approximately 20 glacial cycles during Danube.German Stratigraphic Commission: Stratigraphische Tabelle von Deutschland 2016
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History of the term

The Danube glaciation, Donau glaciation (german: Donau-Kaltzeit) or the Danube Glacial (''Donau-Glazial'') was named by Barthel Eberl in 1930 after the

River Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

. It did not appear in the traditional, quadripartite ice age schema of the

by Albrecht Penck. The Danube was the oldest glaciation in the Alps for which there was evidence outside of the Iller- Lech region. Danube Stage was thought to be preceded by the Biber-Danube interglacial and followed by the

Danube-Günz interglacial The Danube-Gunz interglacial (german: Donau-Günz-Interglazial), Danube-Gunz warm period (''Donau-Günz-Warmzeit''), often just Danube-Gunz, or also Uhlenberg interglacial (''Uhlenberg-Warmzeit'') are historical terms for a hypothetical warm period ...

. The 2016 version of the detailed stratigraphic table by the German Stratigraphic Commission firmly places Danube (Donau) in the Calabrian and illustrates a continuity of glacial cycles with the preceding Biber stage. The age of the transition to the following Gunz stage remains uncertain. Danube corresponds to Eburonian, Waalian, Menapian, and perhaps Bavelian in the glacial history of Northern Europe.

Glacial cycles

Deep sea core samples have identified approximately 40 marine isotope stages (starting with MIS 63 and going no further than MIS 20). Thus, there have probably been about 20 glacial cycles of varying intensity during Danube. The dominant trigger is believed to be the 41 000 year Milankovitch cycles of axial tilt, but the

Mid-Pleistocene Transition The Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), also known as the Mid-Pleistocene Revolution (MPR), is a fundamental change in the behaviour of glacial cycles during the Quaternary glaciations. The transition happened approximately 1.25–0.7 milli ...

to 100,000 year cycles starts towards the end of Danube.Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science
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References

{{Alpine glaciations Pleistocene events Ice ages Geology of the Alps

History of the term

Glacial cycles

See also

References