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The Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (), Saale complex ( Saale-Komplex) or Saale glacial stage (called the Wolstonian Stage in Britain), covers the middle of the three large glaciations in Northern Europe and the northern parts of Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Western Europe by the Scandinavian Inland Ice Sheet. It follows the Holstein interglacial (Hoxnian Stage in Britain) and precedes the Eemian interglacial (globally known as the Last Interglacial and the Ipswichian in Britain), spanning from around 400,000 years ago to 130,000 years ago. The Saalian covers multiple glacial cycles punctuated by interglacial periods. In its latter part it is coeval with the global Penultimate Glacial Period.
The Saale Glaciation occurred at around the same time as the Wolstonian Stage in the British Isles and the Illinoian Stage in North America.
In 1910, the name for "Saale glaciation" was given by German geologists Jacob Stoller and Konrad Keilhack.Geologische Karte von Preußen und den benachbarten Bundesstaaten Blatt Ebstorf 2928, und Konrad Keilhack: Geologische Karte von Preußen und den benachbarten Bundesstaaten Blatt Teltow 3545.
Several species were hurt by the glaciation, including the , which suffered a reduction comparable to the one towards the end of the ice age.
The Saale Early Glacial includes the:
The upper part of the Saale complex ( obere Teil des Saale-Komplexes) is characterised in North Germany by three great glacial advances (possibly even four in Schleswig-Holstein). They are usually called the:
There are no indisputable traces in northern Germany of clear thermomers (, intervals) between these advances. In the work by Litt et al. (2007) focussed on the southern perimeter of the North German glaciations, the upper part of the Saale complex is subdivided as follows:
The Drenthe Stage corresponds to the maximum extent of glaciation during the Saale complex. During the last stage, the Warthe Stage, glaciers only covered northeast Lower Saxony (parts of the Lüneburg Heath), the Altmark, the Elbe valley downstream of Magdeburg and the region east of it (cf. Südlicher Landrücken), so that these areas are geomorphologically younger than the Northwest German Plain, but older and exhibiting more surface weathering than the much later Young Drift areas of the Weichselian glaciation in northeast Germany. The areas last covered by the Saale cold period, roughly the Westphalian Bight, a large part of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, south Brandenburg, or the Leipzig Bay and Lusatia in Saxony, are called the Old Drift Landscapes ( Altmoränenlandschaften). They were further shaped and changed during the later Weichselian cold period by periglacial processes such as wind-borne sand and loess. The major urstromtal associated with the Saale glacial stage is the Breslau-Magdeburg-Bremen Urstromtal, which was not subsequently covered by ice.
| + Historical names of the "four major" glacials in four regions. ! Region ! Glacial 1 ! Glacial 2 ! Glacial 3 ! Glacial 4 | ||||
| Alps | Gunz glaciation | Mindel | Riss glaciation | Würm |
| North Europe | Eburonian | Elsterian | Saalian | Weichselian |
| British Isles | Beestonian stage | Anglian Stage | Wolstonian Stage | Devensian |
| Midwest U.S. | Pre-Illinoian | Kansan | Illinoian | Wisconsinan |
| + Historical names of interglacials. ! Region ! Interglacial 1 ! Interglacial 2 ! Interglacial 3 | |||
| Alps | Cromerian Stage | Hoxnian Stage | Eemian Stage |
| North Europe | Waalian | Holsteinian | Eemian Stage |
| British Isles | Cromerian Stage | Hoxnian Stage | Eemian Stage |
| Midwest U.S. | Pre-Illinoian | Yarmouthian | Sangamonian |
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