The Holocene: Chapter Objectives

After completing this chapter, students should:

1. Appreciate the Holocene as a unique geologic interval, during which humans have altered Earth's environment.
2. Be able to describe the overall pattern of glacial retreat since about 15,000 years ago.
3. Understand how the retreat of glaciers affected topography.
4. Be able to explain the evidence for three abrupt rises in sea level between 15,000 and 7000 years ago.
5. Be able to describe the migration of humans from Europe to North America and know when it occurred.
6. Understand what is known about the sudden extinction of large mammals in the Americas between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago.
7. Understand and be able to explain the two main theories about why the large mammals disappeared.
8. Know how and when agriculture originated and spread.
9. Know what the hypsithermal interval is and when it occurred.
10. Understand how glaciers, tree rings, and tree lines reveal a record of climatic changes in the northern hemisphere during the Holocene.
11. Be able to describe the four intervals of marked global cooling that have occurred over the past 6000 years.
12. Understand the effects on continental margins of the initial Holocene global rise of sea level by more than 100 meters.
13. Be able to explain the kinds of regional changes in sea level that have occurred over the past 7000 years.
14. Understand the possible consequences of the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produced by human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.
15. Know the major consequences of a warmer global climate and how it might affect civilization.