Rory Hayward, age 11, of Victoria, B. for is question:

How long were the Ice Ages?

We cannot explain why they come and go, but our planet has been tormented with Ice Ages through hundreds of millions of years. The glaciers of the earliest Ice Age on record formed some 500 million years ago. About 200 million years ago, Antarctica suffered an Ice Age which lasted perhaps 50 million years, later, India, Africa, Australia and South America suffered Ice Ages which lasted perhaps 50 million years.

The Northern Hemisphere has suffered four Ice Ages during the past million years. Each time the glaciers took thousands of years to creep down from the Arctic regions and thousands of years to melt. We cannot gauge the life span of an Ice Age or guess where or when it will occur,