Quaternary sediments are commonly recognized in the field by their lack of consolidation into rock and by association with landforms representing processes of deposition (river terraces, shorelines, moraines, and drumlins, for example). The fossils in these deposits are very similar to modern life-forms, but they may represent evidence of cooler (or sometimes warmer) climates. Quaternary sediments are most easily distinguished in temperate latitudes where glacial or periglacial processes held sway. Till is a distinctive type in many locations. This poorly sorted mix of debris contains a fine matrix enclosing outsized pebbles, cobbles, boulders, and sometimes rock types carried from distant locations (erratics). Boulder-strewn ridges and blankets of till in central North America or the northern European plains contain erratics carried for hundreds of kilometres from their source, indicating deposition from a continental ice sheet.

It seems self-evident today, but prior to the early 1800s most scientists thought till formations were deposits of the biblical flood, perhaps carried by icebergs. The term drift, used generically to describe glacial sediment, is an anachronism from this time. However, European and Scandinavian scientists (and laypeople as well) noticed the similarity to Alpine glacier deposits. In 1840 Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz formulated a sweeping theory of Ice Ages and extensive continental ice sheets to explain these deposits. Later emigrating to the United States and becoming a professor at Harvard, Agassiz vigorously promoted this theory, which has evolved into our present understanding.

Glacial marine and glacial lake sediments are common near shorelines that were affected by climatic, sea-level, or rebound effects. Glacial lake sediments are often much richer in sand, silt, and clay, and they contain less organic material than Holocene lake sediments. They may be strongly laminated, with rhythmic alteration of light coarse-grained layers and darker fine-grained layers of less than a millimetre to a few centimetres thick. This rhythmic lamination often represents a seasonal cycle, in which case the laminae are called varves. If the seasonal cycle can be confidently accepted, varves provide excellent correlation tools and function as a measure of time independent of radiometric techniques. Glacial marine sediments may be laminated, but they are most often characterized by dropstones (ice-rafted debris of pebble to boulder size) that were carried by icebergs into the ocean.

Loess is silt that is picked up by high winds in areas that lack vegetation. This Quaternary sediment accumulated in thick blankets away from the edges of ice sheets. Much of the northern Mississippi River valley, northern China, and the extensive plains of Asia and northern Europe are blanketed by loess.

Carbonate platform and shelf environments, such as in Florida, the Bahamas, the Great Barrier Reef, and many other tropical shorelines were strongly affected by lowered sea levels. Sea levels more than 100 metres below today’s resulted in exposed bank tops. Some of these were eroded by rainwater into extensive cave systems, while in some areas winds blew the exposed carbonates into extensive dune ridges. When the sea level rose again, the caves were filled with water, creating spectacular grottoes found by divers in Florida, the Bahamas, and Central America. The bank tops were submerged at the latest stages, and the dune ridges remained to form the core of the modern Bahamas, Bermuda, and many other such islands.

Correlation of Quaternary deposits

Correlation of Quaternary terrestrial sedimentary deposits has long been a challenge. It is easy in some areas to map terminal moraines as they trace across the landscapes of Indiana and Ohio, or from Denmark through northern Germany into Poland and Lithuania. However, correlation of glacial and interglacial events from continent to continent and between hemispheres requires extensive radiometric dating of fossils. The advent of marine oxygen isotopic records gave fresh impetus to attempts to correlate the long-held “four glaciation” models from various parts of the Northern Hemisphere. More important, isotopic records have shown that there were actually as many as 30 distinct glaciations and many shorter events within the Pleistocene alone. In the 1990s a new global viewpoint emerged from the extremely detailed record preserved in ice cores from Greenland, Antarctica, and smaller glaciers around the world. There are differences among these cores, but in general the records show many of the same features as the marine record and the more traditional pollen records and glacial sediment maps. Ice cores allow counting of annual layers for much of the record. Distinctive isotopic events correlate to marine records that can be directly dated with radiocarbon or other radiometric techniques. Correlation from place to place on the globe is thus facilitated by this ice core scale.

Marine sediments have been somewhat easier to correlate based on microfossils of foraminifera or diatoms. Recognition of shifts in ocean currents and temperature bands comes through analysis of many cores along transects of the world’s oceans. In some areas, distinct events provide distinct marker horizons. For instance, near Iceland and in the Mediterranean, volcanic ash horizons provide clear markers that are simultaneous in many cores. These can be correlated to radiometric dates and can also be found on land and in ice cores. Thus, the marine, terrestrial, and ice-core records can be tied together. One of the best-known examples of volcanic ash serving as an “instantaneous” marker horizon is the Bishop Tuff, erupted from the Long Valley Caldera in California about 740,000 years ago. This ash is found in Pleistocene sediments as far away as eastern Nebraska. This and other ashes can be identified by their chemistry and confidently dated with radiometric techniques such as potassium-argon and argon-40–argon-39 dating.