Based on an early geochronological study, the Lvhe coal mine strata were identified as late Miocene and belonging to the Xiaolongtan Formation. Previous research on the Lvhe sediments has led to the discovery of numerous ...
Paleontology & Fossils
May 25, 2022
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50
Roughly 35 million years ago, Earth cooled rapidly. At roughly the same time, the Drake Passage formed between South America and the Antarctic, paving the way for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Thanks to these two factors, ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 21, 2022
10
298
The giant rhino, Paraceratherium, is considered the largest land mammal that ever lived and was mainly found in Asia, especially China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. How this genus dispersed across Asia was long a mystery, ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jun 17, 2021
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4
Temperatures at Earth's highest latitudes were nearly as warm after Antarctica's polar ice sheets developed as they were prior to glaciation, according to a new study led by Yale University. The finding upends most scientists' ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 29, 2020
4
102
A report in the journal Current Biology on July 9 offers a detailed description of the first nearly complete skeleton of an extinct large dolphin, discovered in what is now South Carolina. The 15-foot-long dolphin (Ankylorhiza ...
Archaeology
Jul 9, 2020
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721
A new dolphin species likely from the Oligocene was discovered and described in Ecuador, according to a study published December 20, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yoshihiro Tanaka from the Osaka Museum of Natural ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 20, 2017
0
40
Treeshrews are widely considered a "living model" of an ancestral primate, and have long been called"living fossils". Actual fossils of treeshrews, however, are extremely rare. In a paper published 14 January in Scientific ...
Archaeology
Jan 26, 2016
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91
(Phys.org) —Palaeontologists working in Tanzania have discovered the oldest known fossils from two major primate groups—Old World monkeys, which include baboons and macaques, and apes, which include humans and chimpanzees. ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jun 4, 2013
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0
The Antarctic continental ice cap came into existence during the Oligocene epoch, some 33.6 million years ago, according to data from an international expedition led by the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (IACT)—a ...
Earth Sciences
May 27, 2013
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0
Aprotodon is a large-sized primitive rhinocerotid form, distinguished by relatively robust and strongly curved lower incisors, and the specialized wide mandibular symphysis, which is similar to that of the hippopotamus. It ...
Archaeology
May 27, 2013
0
0
The Oligocene (symbol OG) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present (33.9±0.1 to 23.03±0.05 Ma). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene comes from the Greek ὀλίγος (oligos, few) and καινός (kainos, new), and refers to the sparsity of additional modern mammalian faunas after a burst of evolution during the Eocene. The Oligocene follows the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period.
The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between "[the] archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern-looking ecosystems of the Miocene." Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion of grasslands, and a regression of tropical broad leaf forests to the equatorial belt.
The start of the Oligocene is marked by a major extinction event, a faunal replacement of European with Asian fauna except for the endemic rodent and marsupial families called the Grande Coupure. The Oligocene-Miocene boundary is not set at an easily identified worldwide event but rather at regional boundaries between the warmer late Oligocene and the relatively cooler Miocene.
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