The European Land Mammal Mega Zones (abbreviation: ELMMZ, more commonly known as European land mammal ages or ELMA) are zones in rock layers that have a specific assemblage of fossils ( biozones) based on occurrences of fossil assemblages of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an land

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

s. These biozones cover most of the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

, with particular focus having been paid to the

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

and

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

systems A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and is exp ...

(i.e. rock layers which are 65.5 to 2.588 million years old), the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) 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 ...

has several competing systems. In cases when fossils of mammals are abundant, stratigraphers and paleontologists can use these biozones as a more practical regional alternative to the stages of the official ICS

geologic timescale The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochron ...

. European Land Mammal Mega Zones are often also confusingly referred to as ages, stages, or intervals.

Biostratigraphic methods

Mammal zones were, like all biozones, established using geographic place names where

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

materials were obtained. The basic unit of measure is the first/last boundary statement. This shows that the first appearance event of one

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

is known to predate the last appearance event of another. If two

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

are found in the same fossil

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

or at the same stratigraphic horizon, then their age-range zones overlap. The terrestrial stratigraphy of the

is more difficult than that of marine deposits. The geologic timescale of the ICS is therefore based on marine fossils, that don't occur in terrestrial sediments. This makes the

correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

of terrestrial deposits with the ICS timescale often difficult. Correlation is possible when marine deposits interfinger with terrestrial deposits (resulting from a series of transgressions and regressions of the sea during deposition), but this isn't the case everywhere. A fine stratigraphic division of the terrestrial record can in most places only be made using fossils of land species. Small mammals are often the best choice as they are quite abundant in the terrestrial record, especially their teeth. Teeth have an even better chance of preservation than bones. The European mammalian biozones were established for the

(66-23.03 Mya, 8 zones) and

(23.03-2.58 Mya, 7 zones) separately. Some of these, especially for the Neogene, were already established in the 19th century. The Villafranchian was, for example, introduced by Lorenzo Pareto in 1865. A finer subdivision was established by Pierre Mein in 1975, who divided the Neogene in 17 zones, known as the MN zonation, indicated by the letters MN (Mammal Neogene) and a number. Similarly, a more detailed subdivision for the Paleogene period was established. There are 30 such Mammal Paleogene zones (MP1 to MP30, numbered from old to young).

Paleogene European mammal zones

There are 30 Mammal Paleogene zones covering the

(66-23.03 Mya).

Neogene European mammal zones

European Land Mammal Mega Zones most often have their bases at first appearances (FAD, First Appearance Date) of a certain

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

. The numbers are higher for younger zones. Due to a redefinition of the boundary between the Neogene and

periods, MN 17 is now in fact considered a Quaternary biozone.

Quaternary European mammal zones

The first zonation for the

of Europe was proposed by Azzaroli in 1967. This was then expanded by Gliozzi ''et al.'' in 1997 to make a system of 3 'ages' subdivided into 13 'faunal units'.Gliozzi, Elsa, Laura Abbazzi, Patrizia Argenti, Augusto Azzaroli, Lucia Caloi, Lucia Capasso Barbato, Giuseppe Di Stefano, et al. 1997. “Biochronology of Selected Mammals, Molluscs and Ostracods from the Middle Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene in Italy: The State of the Art.” Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 103 (3): 369–88. The scheme does not define boundaries but instead is accompanied by a range chart, where the entry and exit dates for the taxa are indicated. Each zone is named after a reference locality. Most of the reference locations are in Italy but the scheme is used in other European regions. The mammal ages and Faunal Units (FU) after Gliozzi ''et al.'' are: In 1982, Guérin proposed an alternative scheme, which extended the MN zonation scheme for the

with additional units to cover the Quaternary. There have been further updates since. The MNQ (Mammal Neogene Quaternary) scheme added an additional 12 units in total, MNQ 16–27. For small mammals there is a third scheme, the MmQ, published by Agustí, Moyà‐Solà, and Pons‐Moyà in 1987. The scheme includes some large mammals for reference and thus has a wider application.van der, Made, J. (2018). Quaternary Large‐Mammal Zones. In The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences, S.L. López Varela (Ed.). doi:10.1002/9781119188230.saseas0486

Other continental mammalian biozones

* Asian land mammal age * Mammal Paleogene zone * North American land mammal age * South American land mammal age

References

Notes

Literature

*Koufos, G.D.; Kostopoulos, D.S. & Vlachou, T.D. (2005). '"Neogene/Quaternary mammalian migrations in Eastern Mediterranean", ''Belgian Journal of Zoology'' 135(2): pp. 181–190. * *Mein, P. (1975). ''Report on activity RCMNS-Working groups, 1971–1975'', pp. 78–81, Bratislava. * *{{cite book, last=Steininger , first=F.F. , chapter=Chronostratigraphy, Geochronology and Biochronology of the Miocene "European Land Mammal Mega-Zones" (ELMMZ) and the Miocene "Mammal Zones (MN-Zones)" , pages=9–24 , editor-last1=Rössner, editor-first1=G. E., editor-last2=Heissig, editor-first2=K., title=The Miocene land mammals of Europe, date=1999, publisher=Pfeil, location=München, isbn=3-931516-50-4

External links

Stratigraphic charts
at http://stratigraphy.science.purdue.edu Regional geologic time scales Biochronology Cenozoic Europe * de:ELMMZ Neogen