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The Cenozoic Era (/ 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 mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants).
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.
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 Quaternary (/ k w ə ˈ t ɜːr n ə r i, ˈ k w ɒ t ər n ɛr i / kwə-TUR-nə-ree, KWOT-ər-nerr-ee) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the Phanerozoic eon. [3]
Basin Groups Era begins on Earth. c. 4,450 Ma – 100 million years after the Moon formed, the first lunar crust, formed of lunar anorthosite, differentiates from lower magmas. The earliest Earth crust probably forms similarly out of similar material. On Earth the pluvial period starts, in which the Earth's crust cools enough to let oceans form.
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 ...
Map of Earth around 30 million years ago, during the mid-Cenozoic . The third major and final phase of the break-up of Pangaea occurred in the early Cenozoic (Paleocene to Oligocene). Laurasia split when Laurentia broke from Eurasia, opening the Norwegian Sea about 60–55 Ma. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans continued to expand, closing the ...
The Precambrian includes approximately 90% of geologic time. It extends from 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period (about 539 Ma).It includes the first three of the four eons of Earth's prehistory (the Hadean, Archean and Proterozoic) and precedes the Phanerozoic eon.