Eocene
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This article does not have any sources. (May 2013) |
| Era | Period | Epoch | Start Million years ago |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cainozoic | Quaternary | Holocene | 0.0117 | |
| Pleistocene | 2.588 | |||
| Tertiary | Neogene | Pliocene | 5.333 | |
| Miocene | 23.03 | |||
| Palaeogene | Oligocene | 33.9 | ||
| Eocene | 56 | |||
| Palaeocene | 66 | |||
| Mesozoic | Cretaceous | Upper Cretaceous | 100.5 | |
The Eocene is a geological epoch or stage, the second in the Tertiary. It lasted from 56 million years ago to about 34 million years ago, and was followed by the Oligocene epoch. During its 22 million years, modern mammals became prominent. Most modern mammalian orders, and many of the modern families are present by the end of the Eocene.
The Eocene, like the Palaeocene before it, had a climate much warmer than today. At the start of the Eocene the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum was reached. This lasted for 100,000 years, and caused a large extinction event. At the end of the Eocene another extinction event occurred, this time probably caused by meteorite strikes in Siberia and Chesapeake Bay.
The land was heavily forested, with temperate forests into the polar regions, and the many herbivorous mammals were browsers, not grazers.
Related Pages[change]
| Source | International Chronostratigraphic Chart 2013. International Commission on Stratigraphy, retrieved 8 April 2013. Divisions of geologic time – major chronostratigraphic and geochronologic units USGS, retrieved 8 April 2013. |
