HOLOCENE (from Gr. iiXos, whole, uacvos,

See also:

• RECENT

recent)  , in geology, the time division which embraces the youngest of all the formations; it is equivalent to the " Recent " of some authors . The name was proposed in 186o by P . Gervais . The oldest deposits that may be included are those containing neolithic implements; deposits of historic times should also be grouped here; presumably the youngest are those to be chronicled by the last man . The Holocene formations obviously include all the varieties of deposits which are accumulating at the present day: the gravels and alluvia of rivers; boulder clays, moraines and fluvio-glacial deposits; estuarine, coastal and abyssal deposits of the seas, and their equivalents in lakes; screes, taluses, wind-borne dust and sand and desert formations; chemical deposits from saline waters; peat, diatomite, marls, foraminiferal and other oozes; coral, algal and shell banks, and other organic deposits; mud, lava and dust deposits of volcanic origin and extrusions of asphalt and pitch; to all these must be added the works of man .