The Haslach-Mindel interglacial () and the Haslach-Mindel warm period (''Haslach-Mindel-Warmzeit'') are historical terms for a hypothetical
warm period
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene in ...
of the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
in the
Alpine region
The main valleys of the Alps, orographically by drainage basin.
Rhine basin (North Sea)
High Rhine
*Aare
**Limmat
***Linth (Glarus)
**** Lake Walen
***** Seeztal
**** Klöntal
**** Sernftal
**Reuss
***Lake Lucerne
****Sarner Aa (Brünig Pass c ...
, between the
Haslach and
Mindel glacial stages. The interglacial was defined as the
erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...
phase which follows the Haslach and precedes the Mindel glacial stage. It thus corresponds to the stratigraphic gap between the Haslach beds (''Haslacher Schotter'') and the Tannheim-Laupheim gravels (''Tannheim-Laupheimer Schotter'') northeast of the
Rhine Glacier
The Rhine Glacier was a glacier during the last glacial period and was responsible for the formation of the Lake Constance
Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constan ...
.
Modern research has found that the old glacial terms correspond to many glacial cycles, as identified by
marine isotope stage
Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from Oxygen isotope ratio cycle, oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core ...
s (MIS), making the term Haslach-Mindel superfluous. The term is not used in the 2016 version of the detailed stratigraphic table by the German Stratigraphic Commission.
German Stratigraphic Commission: Stratigraphische Tabelle von Deutschland 2016
/ref>
See also
* Timeline of glaciation
There have been five or six major ice ages in the history of Earth over the past 3 billion years.
The Late Cenozoic Ice Age began 34 million years ago, its latest phase being the Quaternary glaciation, in progress since 2.58 million years ago. ...
References
{{Alpine glaciations
Pleistocene
Ice ages