Mediterranean Monoglacialism?

Abstract

IN many parts of the Mediterranean basin and western Asia there is firm sedimentary evidence for only one “glacial” episode younger than the Villafranchian or, where this is not represented, the upper Tertiary¹. It consists of calcareous and alluvial deposits which were laid down in the valleys during the last marine regression to affect the Mediterranean Sea, and which contain Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts. The alluvial fills commonly pass laterally into scree and slope deposits which betray greater frost activity than at the present day^2,3 and into lacustrine sediments which, in the case of Lake Ioannia (Greece), indicate a peak in lake level 20,000 years ago⁴. During the past 10,000 years or so, fluvial activity has been predominantly erosive, barring a minor aggradational phase during the Middle Ages⁵.