Miocene

climate change to examine past epochs where the full impacts of these processes may be evaluated. One period in which evidence for possible connections between mountain building and global climate change is particularly rich is during the Oligocene-Miocene transition. As such, this essay focuses on the transition between these two epochs during the late Cenozoic. The earth experienced dramatic climate change, with cooling observed in the Eocene/Oligocene boundary of 4-5℃ in the deep ocean (van…

The Pinturas Formation (Middle Miocene) includes a sedimentary succession exposed at the Río Pinturas valley, Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It is separated in three members. The lower and the upper ones were dominated by ashfall episodes with paleosol formation during stability times; while the middle member is represented by desert eolian deposits. Mentioned palaeosols bears a moderately diverse ichnofauna. Trace fossils presents are Coprinisphaera murguiai, C. ispp., Loloichnus baqueroensis,…

washing up on the beaches and it has paleontologists excited. Megaladon Ruled the Ancient Sea Just for few moments, imagine a city bus, now imagine that bus with teeth. Scientists say this was the size of Megalodon and it ruled the oceans during the Miocene-Pliocene years, which were 15 to 5 million years ago. Researchers believe it was the largest and fiercest predator in the ocean until about 2.6 million years…

Megalodon , meaning "big tooth," is an extinct species of shark that lived approximately 23 to 2.6 million years ago (mya), during the Early Miocene to the end of the Pliocene. There has been some debate regarding the taxonomy of megalodon: some researchers argued that it was of the family Lamnidae and closely related to the great white shark, while others argued that it belonged to the extinct family Otodontidae; presently, there is consensus that the latter view is correct. Its genus placement…

Diatoms are considered as one of the critical biostratigraphic tools, especially where calcareous fossils are absent or poorly preserved. While diatoms were common both in marine and non-marine paleoenvironment, diatom-based biostratigraphy is widely used in the marine stratigraphic record. Multiple Deep Sea Drilling Projects (DSDPs) made the core samples available from Antarctic, Equatorial Pacific, and High Latitude North Pacific region. The earliest known fossil diatoms are from Lower…

Monkey closely resemble the ancient Aegyptopithecus primate. Howler Monkeys known for their loud howls that can reach up to three miles away plus enjoy making nests to live in while Aegyptopithecus are known for bridging the gap between the Eocene and Miocene fossils. The Aegyptopithecus and the Howler Monkey have numerous similarities and differences. The differences include geographic location, skeletal features, and daily behavior; meanwhile similarities include social behavior, body size and…

A tale of modern whales: Divergence and radiation of Neoceti during the Oligocene period likely driven by environmental changes in Southern Oceans ZOO*4910 Integrative Vertebrate Biology Group 04 Candace Flynn (cflynn@mail.uoguelph.ca), Melissa Westaway, Katherine Znotinas, and Daniela Banda Marin 2 November 2014 Abstract Reasons for divergence within the animal kingdom is heavily debated across many orders. Macroevolution in Cetacea has been attributed to a variety of…

from the material that was investigated, the extinct genus Psallops is represented by only two fossil species (P. eocenicus sP. n. and P. bitterfeldi sP. n.) in Eocene Baltic amber and one more species (P. popovi Hercz.) is so far only known from Miocene Dominican amber (Herczek, 2011). At the same time, Schuh (1976) correctly pointed out that the position of the genus Psallops had always been problematical and all of its characters showed a greater variation than had previously been known…

Both have 42 chromosomes believed to be inherited from a common ancestor during the Miocene epoch. Both groups have high sexual dimorphism and are terrestrials. There is evidence that there is dominance hierarchies in males and females. Macaques are spread throughout the planet, making them second to humans. The specie comprises of four…

After dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago, mammals began to evolve and diversify into new niches. In order to understand and disentangle this convoluted history of mammals, paleontologists narrowed the focus of their studies to horse because horse evolution occurred approximately at around 55 million years ago, and their fossil record is highly rich in details. In the next several paragraphs, we will discuss the morphological changes in horse from the Eocene epoch to the Holocene…