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In 2004, the Tertiary Period was officially replaced by the Paleogene and Neogene Periods. The common use of epochs during the Cenozoic helps palaeontologists better organise and group the many significant events that occurred during this comparatively short interval of time. Knowledge of this era is more detailed than any other era because of ...
Tertiary (/ ˈ t ɜːr. ʃ ə. r i, ˈ t ɜː r. ʃ i ˌ ɛr. i / TUR-shə-ree, TUR-shee-err-ee) [1] is an obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at ...
Index fossils must have a short vertical range, wide geographic distribution and rapid evolutionary trends. Another term, "zone fossil", is used when the fossil has all the characters stated above except wide geographical distribution; thus, they correlate the surrounding rock to a biozone rather than a specific time period.
The Phanerozoic Eon (Greek: period of well-displayed life) marks the appearance in the fossil record of abundant, shell-forming and/or trace-making organisms. It is subdivided into three eras, the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic, with major mass extinctions at division points.
It is the first period of the Cenozoic Era, the tenth period of the Phanerozoic and is divided into the Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene epochs. The earlier term Tertiary Period was used to define the time now covered by the Paleogene Period and subsequent Neogene Period; despite no longer being recognized as a formal stratigraphic term ...
Cenozoic Era: Cenozoic Era (66 Ma to present): The current era has seen great diversification of bony fishes. Over half of all living vertebrate species (about 32,000 species) are fishes (non-tetrapod craniates), a diverse set of lineages that inhabit all the world's aquatic ecosystems, from snow minnows (Cypriniformes) in Himalayan lakes at ...
Later into the period, it began to withdraw and the coastal plains of the western states were home to dinosaurs like Edmontosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus. Another mass extinction ended the reign of the dinosaurs. The Cenozoic Era began afterward. The inland sea of the Cretaceous gradually vanished and mammals were beginning to dominate ...
Quetzalcoatlus, one of the largest flying animals to ever live, first appears in the fossil record. c. 66.038 ± 0.011 Ma – Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period marks the end of the Mesozoic era and the age of the dinosaurs; start of the Paleogene Period and the current Cenozoic era.