The glacial epoch was a period during which the climate of the modern temperate regions was polar, and ice covered large portions of the northern hemisphere to the mountain tops. Any of the geologic epochs characterized by an ice age; thus, the Pleistocene epoch may be termed a glacial epoch. Generally, an interval of geologic time which was marked by a major equatorward advance of ice; the term has been applied to an entire ice age or (rarely) to the individual glacial stages which make up an ice age.
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