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The Cenozoic (/ ˌ s iː n ə ˈ z oʊ. ɪ k, ˌ s ɛ n-/ SEE-nə-ZOH-ik, SEN-ə-; [1] [2] lit. ' new life ') is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of insects, mammals, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants).
An era is the second largest ... changes in the history of life on Earth: Paleozoic (old life), Mesozoic (middle life), and Cenozoic (new life). Names of ...
It lasted all through the time of the non-avian dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era, and ended 33.9 million years ago in the middle of the Cenozoic Era (the current Era). This greenhouse period lasted 226.1 million years. The hottest part of the last greenhouse earth was the Late Paleocene - Early Eocene.
Between 640 and 720 million years ago, the Earth was covered in ice, snagging it the modern nickname “Snowball Earth.” Recently, researchers found a rock formation that shows the transition ...
The earliest evidence for life on Earth includes: 3.8 billion-year-old biogenic hematite in a banded iron formation of the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in Canada; [30] graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks in western Greenland; [31] and microbial mat fossils in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia.
The third ice age, and possibly most severe, is estimated to have occurred from 720 to 635 Ma (million years) ago, [3] in the Neoproterozoic Era, and it has been suggested that it produced a second [4] "Snowball Earth", i.e. a period during which Earth was completely covered in ice.
The succeeding eon is the Phanerozoic, divided into three eras: the Palaeozoic, an era of arthropods, fishes, and the first life on land; the Mesozoic, which spanned the rise, reign, and climactic extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs; and the Cenozoic, which saw the rise of mammals. Recognizable humans emerged at most 2 million years ago, a ...
The Paleogene (alternatively Palaeogene) Period is a unit of geologic time that began 66 and ended 23.03 Ma [10] and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic Era. This period consists of the Paleocene , Eocene and Oligocene Epochs.