GLACIAL GEOLOGY and the Pleistocene Epoch by Richard Foster Flint
Professor of Geology in Yule University New York JOHN WILEY SONS,
Inc. London CHAPMAN HALL, Limited To the memory of MAX DEMOREST
1910-1942 Outstanding glaciologist, excellent field companion,
generous and thoughtful friend, who died to save the lives of
others. November 30, 1942 PREFACE The Pleistocene epoch occupies a
peculiarly important place in the time scale of geology, for it
embraces the events of the latest million or more years in the
history of the Earth and is therefore so recent that it bridges the
gap between the geologic changes now in progress and the more
remote past. When the work of the geologist is finished, wrote
Gilbert, 1 and his final comprehensive report written, the longest
and most important chapter will be upon the latest and shortest of
the geo logic periods. The chapter will be longest because the
exceptional full ness of the record of the latest period will
enable him to set forth most completely its complex history. The
changes of each period its erosion, its sedimentation, and its
metamorphism obliterate part of the records of its predecessor and
of all earlier periods, so that the order of our knowledge must
continue to be, as it now is, the inverse order of their antiquity.
This fact in itself furnishes an adequate reason for making the
prin cipal facts of the Pleistocene epoch compactly available, not
only to geologists but also to Geologists, archeologists,
geographers, and . others whose studies reach back into the
prehistoric realm. In addition, the increased pace of research upon
Pleistocene problems in general, and problems in glacial geology in
particular, that has been evidentduring the last two decades has
emphasized the necessity, in this field, of a summary that will be
at once a reference to the data already established and a means of
indicating the areas and problems in which further research is most
needed. These are the principal objectives of the present volume.
No one knows better than its author that it falls short of attain
ing them. Knowledge of the Pleistocene has grown to such an extent
that a complete reference work would become an encyclopedia. The
consequent necessity for condensation has required the exercise of
selective judgment at every turn. The list of references at the end
of the book is far from complete, though an earnest effort has been
made to see that it is representative. In particular it may lack
important titles that have appeared in some countries during the
war years and that have not yet been widely distributed. 1 Gilbert
1890, p. 1. viii PREFACE This discussion treats the Pleistocene
frankly from the point of view of glaciation, the outstanding
characteristic that distinguishes the Pleisto cene from the epochs
that preceded it. The somewhat cumbersome title was selected with
this fact in mind, in an effort not to create the impression that
the work is a fully balanced treatment of every phase of the
Pleistocene. As is pointed out in Chapter 16, the correlations of
Pleistocene events cited and suggested are, as far as possible,
those based on geologic evidence rather than on archeologic
evidence. In the presentation of geologic evidence itself
stream-terrace data are used as little as possible in the belief
that this class of data is more frequently subject to faulty
interpretation than the data obtained from features ofother kinds.
In particular this book avoids, in correlation, deduction from any
theory of Pleistocene climatic fluctuation which sets up a fixed
chronology of events. This conservative attitude is adopted on the
principle that only when the stratigraphic column is built up
strictly on geologic evidence can the influence of prejudice in
favor of a particular theory of climate be avoided...
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