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During the early Paleocene, flora were relatively diverse with little predation from insects, even 1.7 million years after the extinction event. [ 82 ] [ 83 ] Studies of the size of the ichnotaxon Naktodemasis bowni , produced by either cicada nymphs or beetle larvae, over the course of the K-Pg transition show that the Lilliput effect occurred ...
Multituberculates, a now-extinct rodent-like group not closely related to any modern mammal, were the most successful group of mammals in the Mesozoic, and they reached peak diversity in the early Paleocene. During this time, multituberculate taxa had a wide range of dental complexity, which correlates to a broader range in diet for the group ...
Alvarez and others reported spikes in the level of platinum group metals like iridium at the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary in Italy, Denmark, and New Zealand. They interpreted this sudden introduction of rare-earth metals as evidence for an asteroid impact, to which they attributed the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. [39]
Climate change during the last 65 million years as expressed by the oxygen isotope composition of benthic foraminifera. The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) is characterized by a brief but prominent excursion, attributed to rapid warming. Note that the excursion is understated in this graph due to the smoothing of data.
The Paleocene Epoch began with the K–Pg extinction event, and the early part of the Paleocene saw the recovery of the Earth from that event. The continents began to take their modern shapes, but most continents (and India) remained separated from each other: Africa and Eurasia were separated by the Tethys Sea , and the Americas were separated ...
The Earth's poles were cool and temperate; North America, Europe, Australia, and South America were warm and temperate; equatorial areas were warm; and the climate around the Equator was hot and arid. [citation needed] In the Paleocene, the Earth's climate was much warmer than today's by as much as 15 °C and atmospheric CO 2 was around 500 ...
During this period there was hardly any tectonic activity, no glaciations and the atmosphere composition remained stable. It is bordered by two different oxygenation and glacial events. Temperature reconstructions based on oxygen and silicon isotopes from rock samples have predicted much hotter Precambrian sea temperatures.
Gondwana had begun to break up during the Jurassic Period, but its fragmentation accelerated during the Cretaceous and was largely complete by the end of the period. South America , Antarctica , and Australia rifted away from Africa (though India and Madagascar remained attached to each other until around 80 million years ago); thus, the South ...