Eocene

Animate the Continental Drift

New Species:

• Rodents
• Primitive whales

High temperatures and rain, followed by cooling		Antarctica and Australia separate		Forests get smaller and grassland savannas increase		Many mammals of increasing sizes		None	What was the Delaware Bay like?

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.