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New Species:
Rodents and primitive whales appear
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High temperatures and rain, followed by cooling |
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Antarctica
and Australia separate |
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Forests get smaller and grassland savannas increase |
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Many mammals of increasing sizes |
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None |
What
was the
Delaware
Bay like? |
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The Early Eocene is thought to have had the highest temperatures of the entire Cenozoic (about 30° C) and high precipitation in a world that was essentially ice free.
In the middle Eocene, Antarctica and Australia separate, creating a deep water passage bewteen the two and changing oceanic circulation patterns. This results in a global cooling towards the end of the epoch. The lower temperatures and increased seasonality cause the body size of mammals to increase, and create an increasingly open savanna-like vegetation, with a corresponding reduction in forests. |
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