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Paleothere
Palaeotheriidae is an extinct family of herbivorous perissodactyl mammals related to equids. They ranged across Europe and Asia from the Eocene through to the early Oligocene 55–33 Ma, existing for approximately . Living in dense forests, they ate soft leaves, shoots, berries, and leaf matter picked up from the forest floor. Morphology Palaeothere sizes ranged from at the shoulder, and weighed an estimated .S. Legendre. 1988. Les communautes de mammiferes du Paleogene (Eocene superieur et Oligocene) d'Europe occidentale: structure, milieux et evolution. Ph.D. thesis, Universite des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, Montpellier, France. 2 volumes. 1-265 Extinction Evidence suggests that the palaeotheriidae went extinct in Eurasia during the Early Oligocene, approximately 33 Ma, as part of a faunal turnover event known as the Grande Coupure. The Eocene-Oligocene transition marked a significant global cooling event caused by the onset of Antarctic glaciation. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annum
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geisel Valley
The Geisel valley (german: Geiseltal) is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel which rises in Mücheln and is a tributary of the Saale, just under long. Its main settlements are Braunsbedra and Mücheln, which in the future will merge into the 'collective municipality' of ''Geiseltal''. The Geisel valley was quarried for coal from 1698 until the mines were closed in 1994; The mining of brown coal is first attested for 1698 near the Zöbigker grove but is most likely to be older. Initially, only twelve smaller pits emerged at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, which spread to large areas; ultimately, the Braunsbedra-Geiseltal mines became one of the largest connected mining regions in Germany. Coal/Lignite mining At the beginning of the twentieth century, the region was characterized by mostly independent pits (Elisabeth 1906, Großkayna 1907, Beuna 1907, Cecili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The county town is Dorchester, in the south. After the reorganisation of local government in 1974, the county border was extended eastward to incorporate the Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch. Around half of the population lives in the South East Dorset conurbation, while the rest of the county is largely rural with a low population density. The county has a long history of human settlement stretching back to the Neolithic era. The Romans conquered Dorset's indigenous Celtic tribe, and during the Early Middle Ages, the Saxons settled the area and made Dorset a shire in the 7th century. The first re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bouldnor Formation
The Bouldnor Formation is a geological formation in the Hampshire Basin of southern England. It is the youngest formation of the Solent Group and was deposited during the uppermost Eocene and lower Oligocene. Stratotype and occurrence The Bouldnor Formation was named after Bouldnor, a small hamlet east of Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. The formation is exposed along ''Bouldnor Cliff'' between Yarmouth and Hamstead occupying the core of the east-southeast-striking ''Bouldnor Syncline''. Yet the stratotype of the formation is found at ''Whitecliff Bay'' on the east side of the Isle of Wight. History The Bouldnor Formation was scientifically established 1985 by A. Insole and B. Daly, who also defined its members. The paleogene strata on the Isle of Wight had already been described in 1853 by Edward Forbes. Forbes was followed in 1921 by H.J.O. White, a geologist from the Geological Survey. Stratigraphy The Bouldnor-Formation is the topmost formation of the Solent Group befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hampshire Basin
The Hampshire Basin is a geological basin of Palaeogene age in southern England, underlying parts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, and Sussex. Like the London Basin to the northeast, it is filled with sands and clays of Paleocene and younger ages and it is surrounded by a broken rim of chalk hills of Cretaceous age. Extent The Hampshire Basin is the traditional name for the landward section of a basin underlying the northern English Channel and much of central southern England, known more fully as the Hampshire- Dieppe Basin. It stretches a little over 100 miles (160 km) from the Dorchester area in the west to Beachy Head in the east. Its southern boundary is marked by a monocline, the Purbeck Monocline, resulting in a near-vertical chalk ridge which forms the Purbeck Hills of Dorset, running under the sea from Old Harry Rocks to The Needles and the central spine of the Isle of Wight and continuing under the English Channel as the Wight- Bray monocline. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla ( hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, tog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene–Oligocene Extinction Event
The Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, also called the Eocene-Oligocene transition or ''Grande Coupure'', is the transition between the end of the Eocene and the beginning of the Oligocene, an extinction event and faunal turnover occurring between 33.9 and 33.4 million years ago marked by large-scale extinction and floral and faunal turnover (although minor in comparison to the largest mass extinctions). Most of the affected organisms were marine or aquatic in nature. They included the last of the ancient ungulates, the " condylarths". This was a time of major climatic change, especially cooling, not clearly caused by any single major impact or volcanic event. Extended volcanic activity is one possible cause. Another speculation points to several large meteorite impacts near this time, including those of the Chesapeake Bay crater and the Popigai impact structure of central Siberia, which scattered debris perhaps as far as Europe. New dating of the Popigai meteor strengthen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago and the Russian Far East to the east. The continental landmass is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Africa to the west, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and by Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean to the south. The division between Europe and Asia as two continents is a historical social construct, as many of their borders are over land; thus, in some parts of the world, Eurasia is recognized as the largest of the six, five, or four continents on Earth. In geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock. However, the rigidity of Eurasia is debated based on paleomagnetic data. Eurasia covers around , or around 36.2% of the Earth's total land area. It is also home to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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