Tag Archive for 'Cenozoic'

Evolution of the Antarctic Geoid Low. Image credit: P. Glišović & A.M. Forte, doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-28606-1.

Geoscientists Pinpoint Ancient Forces behind Antarctica’s Gravity Hole

Feb 16, 2026 by News Staff

New research by geoscientists from the University of Florida and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris traces the origins of the Antarctic gravity...

Tectonic Plate Movements, Not Volcanoes, Drove Major Climate Shifts Over 540 Million Years

Jan 20, 2026 by News Staff

New research challenges conventional wisdom by demonstrating that mid-ocean ridges and continental rifts, not volcanic eruptions, played the central role...

Lithouva susmanii from the Paleocene of Colombia. Scale bar- 1 mm. Image credit: Herrera et al., doi: 10.1038/s41477-024-01717-9.

60-Million-Year-Old Grape Seeds Found in Colombia

Jul 2, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleobotanists have described nine new species of the grape family Vitaceae on the basis of 60- to 19-million-year-old fossil seeds discovered in four...

Plant-herbivore interactions from the Cenozoic fossil record: (A) meta-network of plant-herbivore interactions, based on 10,714 damaged leaves from 21 fossil floras; colored bars represent the total interaction frequencies of host plants and herbivores; the ten most abundant plant orders are labeled; gray lines represent pair-wise interactions, with more frequent interactions being thicker and less transparent; (B) examples of damage types: (a and b) mines mainly produced by moths; (c and d) galls mainly produced by gall midges; (e-h) external foliage feeding including hole feeding, margin feeding, surface feeding, and skeletonization; (i) endophytic oviposition; (j) in situ preservation of armored scale insects. Scale bars - 10 mm. Image credit: Albrecht et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2300514120.

Fossil Leaves with Insect Imprints Reveal Drivers of Herbivore Functional Diversity during Cenozoic Era

Aug 2, 2023 by News Staff

Plant-eating insects are the most diverse group of multicellular organisms on Earth. The most discussed drivers of their inordinate taxonomic and functional...

The four living sirenian species and the recently extinct Steller’s sea cow; figured body sizes are at relative scale. Image credit: Christy Holton / S. Heritage & E.R. Seiffert, doi: 10.7717/peerj.13886.

New Research Tracks Evolution of Sea Cows

Aug 25, 2022 by News Staff

The sea cows originated in the Tethys Sea, between southern Europe and northern Africa, during the latest part of the Paleocene epoch, according to a new...

Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus photographed with transmitted light under stereomicroscope. Image credit: Mapalo et al., doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1760.

Paleontologists Find Ancient Tardigrade in Dominican Amber

Oct 6, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of tardigrade found in a 16-million-year-old piece of amber from the Dominican Republic. Named Paradoryphoribius...

Based on various lines of geological and geophysical evidence, particularly those accumulated in the last two decades, Nick Mortimer et al argue that Zealandia is not a collection of partly submerged continental fragments but is a coherent 4.9 million km2 continent. NC - New Caledonia; WTP - West Torres Plateau; CT - Cato Trough; Cf - Chesterfield Islands; L - Lord Howe Island; N - Norfolk Island; K - Kermadec Islands; Ch - Chatham Islands; B - Bounty Islands; An - Antipodes Islands; Au - Auckland Islands; Ca - Campbell Island. Image credit: Nick Mortimer et al, doi: 10.1130/GSATG321A.1.

New Research Reveals Violent Birth of Continent Zealandia

Feb 10, 2020 by News Staff

Zealandia — Earth’s seventh continent — experienced dramatic elevation changes between about 50 million and 35 million years ago, according...

An artist’s reconstruction of Anatoliadelphys maasae. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

Cat-Sized Marsupial Relative Lived in Turkey 43 Million Years Ago

Aug 18, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Fossils discovered in Turkey represent a new species that is a previously unknown relative of modern-day marsupials, according to a new paper published...