ABSTRACT
After a 400,000-year period of warm, subtropical conditions within the Belle Glade Subsea, sea levels dropped precipitously, and the entire Florida Platform was again emergent. Caused by the buildup of immense continental glaciers around the Northern Hemisphere, this sea level drop marks the beginning of both the Illinoian Glacial Stage and the late Pleistocene. Like many previous glacial times, the Illinoian was complex, with at least two glacial pulses separated by a short, warmer interglacial time (see Figure 6.1, Chapter 6). As severe as the first Illinoian glaciation was, the second was even more devastating, the sea level dropping to the lowest it had been since the Oligocene. Much of the rich Belle Glade marine fauna disappeared at this time.
