Ice AgeAt the peak of the Ice Age, so much water was locked in glaciers that sea levels dropped 400 feet — exposing millions of square miles of continental shelf and connecting landmasses that are now separated by ocean.SrcUSGS
Next evidence →Earth has experienced at least five major ice ages over the past 2.4 billion years. The one people commonly refer to — the Pleistocene glaciation — began roughly 2.6 million years ago and technically continues today.
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- The Elasmotherium, nicknamed the "Siberian unicorn," was a massive Ice Age rhino that stood 6 feet at the shoulder and may have carried a single enormous horn up to 3 feet long. It survived until roughly 29,000 years ago.
- During the Last Glacial Maximum (roughly 26,000–19,000 years ago), ice sheets up to 2 miles thick covered most of Canada, northern Europe, and Scandinavia. Sea levels dropped 400 feet, exposing vast areas of continental shelf.
- Cave lions were about 25% larger than modern African lions and roamed from Europe to Alaska across the Bering Land Bridge. Prehistoric cave paintings in France's Chauvet Cave depict them hunting in packs without manes.
- Horses actually originated in North America around 55 million years ago and crossed the Bering Land Bridge into Asia. They went extinct in the Americas roughly 10,000 years ago and were only reintroduced by Spanish colonizers in the 1500s.
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