noun
definition
The relatively warm period between glacial periods .
adjective
definition
Occurring between glaciations (colloquially known as ice ages).
Examples of interglacial in a Sentence
We have been in the present interglacial for about 10,000 years.
The last interglacial, from about 70,000 to 130,000 yr BP, was typical in this respect.
However, during the Ipswichian interglacial a rising sea filled The Wash, the large embayment bordering northwest Norfolk.
During the milder interglacial period some southern types, such as Rhododendron ponticum, still held their own, but ultimately succumbed.
The complexity of the glacial period and its subdivision into several glacial epochs, separated by interglacial epochs of considerable length (certainly longer than the postglacial epoch) has a structural consequence in the superposition of successive till sheets, alternating with non-glacial deposits, and also a physiographic consequence in the very different amount of normal postglacial erosion suffered by the different parts of the glacial deposits.
Four defined zones of interglacial deposits are detected, all of which are thought to represent great recessions of the ice, or perhaps its entire disappearance.
The climate of some of the interglacial epochs was at least as warm as that of the present time in the same regions.
Similar interGlacial deposits in Tirol contain leaves of Rhododendron ponticum.
When the warmer interglacial periods recurred the polar and continental ice-caps melted and the sea-level became raised again - that is, there was submergence of the eroded plateaux formed as indicated above.