Deep sea core samples have identified approximately 5 glacial cycles of varying intensity during Gunz.
[1][2] The name Gunz glaciation, Gunzian glaciation or Günz glacial stage (German: Günz-Kaltzeit, also Günz-Glazial, Günz-Komplex and Günz-Eiszeit) goes back to Albrecht Penck and Eduard Brückner, who named this ice age after the River Günz in their multi-volume work, Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter ("The Alps in the Ice Age Period") which was published between 1901 and 1909.
It is the oldest glaciation of the Pleistocene in the traditional, quadripartite glacial classification of the Alps.
[3][4][5] The 2016 version of the detailed stratigraphic table by the German Stratigraphic Commission puts the start of Gunz in the late Calabrian (approximately one million years ago, earlier than MIS 19) and shows a continuity of glacial cycles with the following Mindel stage, with the border arbitrarily put at the start of MIS 10 (approximately 374 000 years ago).
Gunz corresponds roughly to the Cromerian stage in the glacial history of Northern Europe.