Wolstonian Stage

The hall complex, called Saale glaciation or Saale Glacial ( colloquially Saale glaciation or Saale- time) includes the average of three larger occurred in Northern Europe and the North East, Central and Western Europe glaciations by the Scandinavian Inlandeisschild between the older Elster- glacial period and the younger Weichsel glaciation. It replaced the Holstein interglacial period and is followed by the Eemian. The hall complex is currently dated to around 300000-130000 years before present. The actual " ice age " occupies only a part of the Saale glaciation or the Saale complex. The first cold phase ( Fuhne cold period ) at the beginning of the Saale- complex is separated by a warm period ( Dömnitz warm period ) from the actual Saale- " Ice Age". The term Saale glaciation or Saale Glacial is therefore ambiguous in the literature; He called on the one hand only the period in which the glaciers have advanced to northern Germany, on the other hand also the entire hall complex. The terms also go in the scientific literature often confused. [Note 1]

Naming and conceptual history

The name is derived from the same tributary Saale. The term was coined by Jacob Stoller and Konrad Keilhack in 1910 as " Saale ice age ". [Note 2] It should essentially replace the older term " penultimate ice age ". However, laid Stoller and Keilhack neither a type locality yet a type profile. Type region is definitely the Saale region. 1986 and 1992, the Sub-Commission decided for European Quartärstratigraphie to define the period of transition between Holstein interglacial period and Fuhne glacial period to the beginning of the Eemian than Saale complex. In line with customary in the German suffix- ium for chronostratigraphic units, the stratigraphic map of Germany in 2002 called the Saale complex as Saalium complex. The naming of the various stages of the Eisvorstoßes is also not uniform.

Correlation and dating

The lower limit of the Saale- complex ( and thus the upper limit of the Holstein interglacial period ) is dated to about the end of the marine oxygen isotope zone MIS 9. The ceiling of the hall complex ( and therefore the lower limit of the Eemian ) is correlated with the marine oxygen isotope zone MIS 5e. This order corresponds to the period of 300,000 years to 130,000 years. In the foothills of the Saale complex correlated with the Riss glaciation.

Dissemination

The maximum advance of the ice (Drenthe stage) can be divided into northern Germany by the naming of places Dusseldorf - describe Görlitz - Paderborn - Hameln - Goslar - Eisleben - Zeitz - Meissen. In the East (Poland, Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony- Anhalt) remained the Eisvorstoß about 10 to 50 km beyond the maximum thrust of the Elster glaciation back. From the resin both distribution limits are gleichverlaufend. West of the Central Mountains then accesses the ice of the Saale- complex by more than 100 km further to the south as the ice of the Elster- glacial period. Front of this line, i.e., in front of the former glaciers, fluvial and periglacial sediments are widespread. In Drenthe stage even today's North Sea basin, the UK and Ireland were affected.

Sequence and structure of the Saale- complex

The Saale- complex can be divided into a lower portion ( also called Saale- Frühglazial, for example) (also known as Middle and Upper Saale, Saale ice age or younger called ) and an upper section with the advance of the glaciers to the north of Germany divided. The Saale- Frühglazial (also Lower Saale ) includes the

• Dömnitz warm period. The Dömnitz warm period is characterized by mixed oak forest, hazel and hornbeam. Worth mentioning is the discovery of the Great Algenfarn ( Azolla filiculoides ).
• Fuhne cold period. After the end of the Holstein interglacial period it came to deforestation in northern Germany and the formation of a sub-arctic vegetation.

(Also known in the Middle and Upper Saale divided, or Younger Saale ice age ) The upper part of the hall complex is in northern Germany (possibly in Schleswig -Holstein and four thrusts ) is characterized by three major glacier advances, in the literature mostly as Drenthe -I, Drenthe II and Warta stage are referred. In the more recent work by Litt et al. ( 2007) of the upper part of the hall complex is divided as follows:

• Warta - stage
• Seyda interval
• Drenthe stage Leipzig- phase
• Pomßen interval
• Zeitz phase

The Drenthe stage also corresponds to the maximum glaciation during the Saale complex. The last stage, the Warta river stage, plated only Nordostniedersachsen (part of the Lüneburg Heath ), the Altmark, the Elbe Valley downstream north of Magdeburg and the area east of it again with glaciers (see: Southern Country back), so that these lands are geomorphological younger as the north-western German lowlands, but older and more weathered than the superficial Jungmoränengebiete much later covered by the Weichsel glaciation in northeast Germany. Last of the Saale glaciation glaciated areas, so for example the Westphalian Bay, a large part of Lower Saxony and Saxony -Anhalt, southern Brandenburg and the Leipzig lowlands and Lusatia in Saxony, referred to as " old moraine landscapes ". It should be noted, however, that even such areas during the later Weichselkaltzeit by periglacial processes such as drifts of blown sand and loess were further shaped and changed. As a glacial valley, which was then run over again, the Saaleglazial particular due to the Breslau - Magdeburg - Bremen glacial valley.