The Pleistocene epoch, which had been characterized by repeated glaciations covering large portions of the Northern Hemisphere, ended approximately 11,700 years ago as the climate warmed and the great ice sheets began to melt.

The Holocene is the period of climatic and environmental stability that followed.

But the early Holocene was not simply a repetition of the present-day world.

The transition from glacial to interglacial conditions involved massive environmental changes that played out over thousands of years.

The melting of the ice sheets returned enormous quantities of water to the world’s oceans, causing sea levels to rise globally by approximately 120 to 130 meters from their glacial maximum levels.

This sea level rise transformed coastlines around the world, inundating vast areas of continental shelf that had been exposed during the glacial maximum.