Here this zone is characterized by the expansion of Quercus (Oak), Corylus (Hazel), Taxus, Ulmus (Elm), Fraxinus (Ash), Carpinus (Hornbeam), and Picea (Spruce).
It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (2006) after Professor Michael L. Bender at the Department of Geosciences (Geochemistry), Princeton University (earlier at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island), whose paleoclimate research from 1984 centered on the glacial-interglacial climate change and the global carbon cycle.
Accordingly, in Britain that entire period is called "Hoxnian", signifying its identification there, based on evidence from undisturbed layers of pollens from plants and trees found at Frere's site in the 1950s (notably by Richard Gilbert West), which established the cycle of warming and cooling by which the stages of the Great Interglacial are fixed.
These so-called Heinrich events, named after their discoverer Hartmut Heinrich, appear to have a 7,000–10,000-year periodicity, and occur during cold periods within the last interglacial.
The Pastonian interglacial, now called the Pastonian Stage (from Paston, Norfolk), is the name for an early or middle Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles.
As a research student, he was supervised by Harry Godwin, Director of the Subdepartment of Quaternary Research and investigated the now classic study of the stratigraphy and palynology of the Middle Pleistocene interglacial lake deposits at Hoxne, Suffolk.
Fossil and subfossil shells of Turritella communis have been found in interglacial strata in the North Sea, from the Late Pliocene to the Quaternary Period.