Cenozoic Era 2: Neogene Period – New Routes for Life
Key Events
- The Isthmus of Panama joins North and South America, cutting off warm currents flowing from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
- The Indian subcontinent collides with Asia, pushing up the Himalayan Mountains.
- Sea levels fall, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America.
- The Mediterranean is created.
- Changes in sea circulation patterns drive evolution in the oceans, with new marine mammals and fish emerging, including the largest known shark, Otodusmegalodon.
- Grasslands and savannahs replace forests. Animals adapt to eating grass.
- The first human ancestors (hominins) appear in the fossil record in Africa ~7 million years ago.
![Illustration of life during the Neogene Period.](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Sea-to-Stars-Line-elements-A3-Finals_Page_14-724x1024.jpg)
Facts, Debates & Trivia
- The Neogene name is derived from the Greek for ‘New Birth’.
- The famous fossil hominid, ‘Lucy’, lived ~3 million years ago in northern Ethiopia. The researchers who found the fossil nicknamed her after the Beatle’s song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’.
![](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Cornwall-Sea-to-Stars-V5-Proofs_Page_15-341x1024.jpg)
Conditions
- The global climate becomes seasonal.
- Ice caps appear at the poles. The first glacial event of the Ice Age begins.
![](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/15-Neogene-20_million_ya-1024x935.jpg)
Timeline
23.03 – 2.58 million years ago
(20.45 million years)
![](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/15-Stopwatch-Neogene-1024x843.png)
![](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/solow_motion.png)
Where have you reached on the trail?
![](https://cornwallseatostars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/15-Neogene_Trail.png)