How did the climate change during the Miocene?
The general climate trends throughout the Miocene were gradual global cooling and ice sheet growth, regional aridification, intensification of monsoons, and expansion of grasslands at the expense of forests.
What happened in the Middle Miocene?
The “Middle Miocene disruption” refers to a wave of extinctions of terrestrial and aquatic life forms that occurred following the Miocene Climatic Optimum (18 to 16 Ma), around 14.8 to 14.5 million years ago, during the Langhian Stage of the mid-Miocene.
What caused the Miocene climatic optimum?
The primary causes for the cooling that came out of the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum are centered around significant changes in both oceanic circulation, as well as changing atmospheric CO2 levels.
What climatic changes occurred at the Miocene Pliocene transition?
The Middle to Late Miocene is generally characterized by a warmer climate than the drier and cooler Pliocene, with an overall global cool- ing trend recorded by geochemical proxies from the world’s oceans (Zachos, 2001; Holbourn et al., 2013). Within this record, a notable period of brief global warming occurred at ca.
What happened during the Miocene period?
The Miocene Epoch, 23.03 to 5.3 million years ago,* was a time of warmer global climates than those in the preceeding Oligocene or the following Pliocene and it’s notable in that two major ecosystems made their first appearances: kelp forests and grasslands.
What is the mid Miocene climatic optimum?
The Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) is one of Earth’s most recent prolonged warming events, recorded in both the deep ocean and mid- to high-latitude continents. Thick Cenozoic deposits in the Longzhong Basin, Northwest China, provide great potential for characterizing the MMCO, but have not been well documented.
What major events happened during the Miocene?
The number of rainforests began to decrease and were replaced by dry forests and woodlands. The vegetation began to shift from closed broad-leaved forests to more open, drier forests as well as grasslands and deserts. Eurasia also experienced increasing aridification during the Miocene.
What is Miocene climate?
Miocene climate was dynamic: long periods of early and late glaciation bracketed a ∼2 Myr greenhouse interval—the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO). Floras, faunas, ice sheets, precipitation, pCO2, and ocean and atmospheric circulation mostly (but not ubiquitously) covaried with these large changes in climate.
What happened during the Miocene?
What happened at the end of the Miocene?
By the end of the Miocene Epoch almost all the modern groups of whales had appeared, as had the early seals and walruses. Birds such as herons, rails, ducks, eagles, hawks, crows, sparrows, pheasants, owls, and partridges were present in Europe, where the uplifting of the Alps continued through Miocene time.
What happened in the late Miocene?
The late Miocene was a time of global drying and cooling. As ice rapidly accumulated at the poles, sea-levels fell, rainfall decreased and rainforests retreated. Many plant and animal groups died out and other forms, better adapted to a drying world, took their place.
Where did the Miocene occur?
Important Miocene deposits occur in North and South America, southern Europe, India, Mongolia, East Africa, and Pakistan. Both marine and terrestrial environments are represented in the Miocene stratigraphic record.
What happened at the end of Miocene?
What was happening during the Miocene?
What was the atmosphere like in the Miocene epoch?
During the Miocene time period (∼23–5 million years ago), Planet Earth looked similar to today, with some important differences: the climate was generally warmer and highly variable, while atmospheric CO2 was not much higher.
What was the temperature during the Miocene epoch?
Samples younger than 14.5 Ma yield relatively cool temperatures of 12.7 ± 1.3 °C and 16.9 ± 4.1 °C (at 14.13 Ma and 13.35 Ma, respectively), averaging 14.8 ± 4.3 °C.
What happened during Miocene epoch?
What was the climate like during the Middle Miocene?
During the Middle Miocene, Earth’s climate transitioned from a relatively warm phase (Miocene climatic optimum) to a colder mode with reestablishment of permanent ice sheets on Antarctica, thus marking a fundamental step in Cenozoic cooling.
What caused the cooling in the Middle Miocene?
The primary causes for the cooling that came out of the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum are centered around significant changes in both oceanic circulation, as well as changing atmospheric CO 2 levels.
What is the Middle Miocene disruption?
The term Middle Miocene disruption, alternatively the Middle Miocene extinction or Middle Miocene extinction peak, refers to a wave of extinctions of terrestrial and aquatic life forms that occurred around the middle of the Miocene, roughly 14 million years ago, during the Langhian stage of the Miocene.
How did plate tectonics affect the climate during the Miocene?
Because the positions of continents in the Miocene world were similar to where they lie today, it is easiest to describe the plate movements and resulting changes in the paleoclimate by discussing individual continents. In North America, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain ranges formed, causing a non-seasonal and drier mid-continent climate.