Beestonian stage

The Günz cold period (also Günz - glacial, Günz complex or outdated Gunz glaciation ) is a glacial period of the Pleistocene. It applies in the traditional four-membered cold time scheme of the Alps as the oldest, although there is evidence of even older glaciations in the foothills, so that is now expected to at least eight to 15 glaciations. The name goes back to Albrecht Penck and Eduard Brückner, who called this cold time in their published 1901-1909 multi-volume work, The Alps during the ice age after the Günz. Type region is the Iller- Lech- plate. The Gunz glaciation followed the Danube Günz - interglacial and was replaced by Günz - Haslach Interglacial.

Structure

The first description of Penck & Brückner was referring to the old terminal moraines and older cover gravels in the region of the Salzach glacier. Be made also in the Günz cold period as described by Graul 1943 elders cover gravels in the vicinity of the Rhine glacier and the southern Iller- Lech- plate; and the quencher of 1976 excreted among terraces of the northern Iller- Lech- plate and the terrace sequence in the region of Aindling.

The conditions in the territory of the Iller- Lech- plate suggest that the Günz cold period of at least three glacial periods. The magnetization of the sediments at the Supreme and Holy Mountain proves that the oldest glacial till before the Brunhes - Matuyama boundary ranges, and thus still has altpleistozäne shares. The majority of the older ceiling ballast is however placed in the Brunhes polarity zone and thus in the Middle Pleistocene. The Gunz glaciation is parallelized with the Glacial A and B of Cromer complex and Dorst - glacial Bavelium of the complex of the Netherlands. It corresponds to the parallel MIS 16, 18 and 20 and thus has an age of from about 600,000 to 800,000 years. If also the Linge glacial (MIS 22) must be parallelized of Baveliums with the Gunz glaciation, they would have started about 900,000 years ago. Evidence of deposits or river terraces from this period in the German Alpine foreland is still pending.

In Switzerland, the Günz cold season during the period of the ceiling gravel glaciations.

Occurrence

Main legacy is the elderly cover gravels that were deposited fluvioglazial and partly form important aquifers. They come in a number of smaller gravel areas in Swabia ( especially the Zeiler gravel ), south of Munich and at Mühldorf ago. In Upper Austria the older cover gravels of the Traun - Enns are also among the legacies of Günz cold period. Other deposits of this period are floating earth, loess deposits and various derived loams.

Moraines of Günz glacial period are the oldest in the northern foothills of the Alps, reliably known Altmoränen. From Günz Glacial remnants of moraines are preserved mainly in the eastern foothills of the Alps, as the territory of the Salzach glacier and Traun glacier. In the area of the Western Bavarian Alps Lands have been destroyed between the Rhine and the Inn- Chiemsee glacier glacier all traces of earlier glaciations by the glaciers of the Mindel and Riss glaciation.