Latest Paleogene Stories

A series of global warming events called hyperthermals that occurred more than 50 million years ago had a similar origin to a much larger hyperthermal of the period, the Pelaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), new research has found. The findings represent a breakthrough in understanding the major “burp” of carbon, equivalent to burning the entire reservoir of fossil fuels on Earth, that occurred during the PETM. “As geologists, it unnerves us that we don’t know where this huge...

The world’s oceans may be acidifying more rapidly than they have at any time in the past 300 million years due to high levels of pollution, according to research published this week in the journal Science. Researchers, led by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the University of Bristol, assessed a number of climate change events in Earth’s history, including an asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They warn that too much carbon...

The ancient sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, lived around 50 million years ago. It was very distinct in its appearance because it was only about the size of a modern day house cat, weighing in around 12 pounds. The horse lived in what is known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000 year period where the Earth's atmospheric temperature rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, caused by a great release of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. In response to the...

A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to two Princeton University reports that reject the prevailing theory that the extinction was caused by a single large meteorite. Princeton-led researchers found that a trail of dead plankton spanning half a million years provides a timeline that links the mass...

University of Colorado researchers have found that worms were among the first animals to surface after an asteroid plowed into the Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago. Geological sciences Associate Professor Karen Chin of the university said this "K-T extinction" is often focused on the survival and proliferation of mammals, and studies show some of the earliest terrestrial ecosystems to emerge were aquatic plants. However, new evidence from North Dakota shows networks of...

The debate whether dinosaurs went extinct due to a large space rock that struck the Earth 65.5 million years ago (MYA) may have been answered with the discovery of a distinctive brow horn from a Ceratopsian dinosaur just 13 centimeters (5.1 inches) below the K-T boundary -- the distinct layer of geological sediments separating the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. Rocks laid down 65.5 MYA show a thin layer abundant in rare elements like Iridium, spherules and shocked Quartz that could only...

Researchers have pinpointed the timing of the start of an ancient global warming episode known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). The early part of the Cenozoic era witnessed a series of transit global warming events called hyperthermals.  The most severe of these was the PETM at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, which took place around 56 million years ago. Over a 20,000-year period, ocean temperatures rose globally by about 41 degrees Fahrenheit.  The team said one...

Scientists are unraveling the environmental changes that took place around the Arctic during an exceptional episode of ancient global warming. Newly published results from a high-resolution study of sediments collected on Spitsbergen represent a significant contribution to this endeavor. The study was led by Dr Ian Harding and Prof John Marshall of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES), based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.Around 56 million...

For decades, scientists have accumulated ever-larger datasets that suggest an enormous space rock crashed into the ocean off the Yucatan Peninsula more than 65 million years ago, resulting in the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction.Recent research, supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), suggested that the impact could have occurred 300,000 years prior to the K-Pg extinction, and that another cause--perhaps a second impact, or the long-lasting volcanic activity at the...

An asteroid strike may not only account for the demise of ocean and land life 65 million years ago, but the fireball's path and the resulting dust, darkness and toxic metal contamination may explain the geographic unevenness of extinctions and recovery, according to Penn State geoscientists."Our results shed light on the causes of nannoplankton extinction, how productivity was restored, the factors that controlled the origination of new species, and, ultimately, how phytoplankton...