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The Cenozoic is just as much the age of savannas, the age of co-dependent flowering plants and insects, and the age of birds. [40] Grasses also played a very important role in this era, shaping the evolution of the birds and mammals that fed on them. One group that diversified significantly in the Cenozoic as well were the snakes.
Land-based evidence works acceptably well back as far as MIS 6 (see Marine isotope stages, Stages), but it has been difficult to coordinate stages using just land-based evidence before that. Hence, the "names" system is incomplete and the land-based identifications of ice ages previous to that are somewhat conjectural.
The Nadir crater, possibly the result of a second, smaller asteroid that struck around the same time as the Chicxulub impact, is identified and described by researchers. [163] [162] A study indicates a substantial decline in dinosaur biodiversity millions of years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, [164] [165] affirming a study ...
This species might be evolved some time before, up to c. 2 Ma ago. c. 1.7 Ma – Australopithecines go extinct. c. 1.8–0.8 Ma – colonisation of Eurasia by Homo erectus. c. 1.5 Ma – earliest possible evidence of the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus; c. 1.2 Ma – Homo antecessor evolves. Paranthropus dies out.
It covers roughly 539 million years. During this period continents drifted apart, but eventually collected into a single landmass known as Pangea, before splitting again into the current continental landmasses. [citation needed] The Phanerozoic is divided into three eras – the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic.
Areas of Cenozoic North America that were covered by seawater tended to be areas near the modern coasts. [135] The Cannonball Sea near Minot, North Dakota was the last of the North American interior. [136] Cenozoic marine invertebrates are best known from deposits near the coasts and tend to resemble modern forms.
The greater eventual success of South America's African immigrants compared to its native early Cenozoic mammal fauna is another example of this phenomenon, since the former evolved over a greater land area; their ancestors migrated from Eurasia to Africa, two significantly larger continents, before finding their way to South America. [58]
The event, which took place over a 170-230 kyr time interval, [14] is evidenced in the geologic record by two negative carbon isotope excursions and is believed to have led to a 2–3 °C (3.6–5.4 °F) warming of both deep and surface seawater. [15]