The Jordan valley in its lower part keeps about the old level of the sea-bottom and is therefore a remnant of the Miocene world.
Everywhere these Miocene islands, etc., bear a flora of true type.
During the Miocene and pliocene ages, sessile cirripedes abounded.
Eocene, Miocene, pliocene Tuff, Lias and Trias and that is enough.
The first thing which impresses us is the extremely fragmentary distribution of the Miocene and Pliocene beds.
The first took place in the Miocene age, about 800,000 years ago.
He may even have lived in the Miocene or Eocene period, when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species.
But this is not the only tree that grew in the Miocene forests of both continents.
The Miocene has yielded by far the greatest number of bird-bones, including even eggs and imprints of feathers.
Let us now return to the Miocene Age, in which we are to seek for the presence of man.
"pertaining to the geological period between the Oligocene and Pliocene," 1831, irregular formation from Greek meion "less" + -cene.
A typical example of the monstrosities with which scientific men in want of a label for something, and indifferent to all beyond their own province, defile the language. The elements of the word are Greek, but not the way they are put together, nor the meaning demanded of the compound. [Fowler]
| Miocene The fourth epoch of the Tertiary Period, from about 24 to 5 million years ago. During this time the climate was warmer than it had been in the Oligocene, and kelp forests and grasslands first developed. With the isolation of Antarctica, a circumpolar ocean current was established in the southern Hemisphere, reducing the amount of mixing of cold polar water and warm equatorial water and causing a buildup of ice sheets in Antarctica. The African-Arabian plate became connected to Asia, closing the seaway which had previously separated Africa from Asia. Mammalian diversity was at its peak. See Chart at geologic time. |
