Pliocene

Discovery of a fossil skull points to the origins of Ice Age megafauna It's an August afternoon in the Zanda Basin in southwestern Tibet, in the foothills of the Himalayas. I am wandering aimlessly in a patch of badlands, slightly lightheaded owing to the more than 14,000-foot elevation, scanning the ground for any signs of fossils, or for that matter, anything that might distract me from the monotony of a day of fruitless search. It is late into our field season, and besides a tooth fragment or

were identified belonging to the Middle Miocene, late Miocene and early Pliocene. The zones are Multispinulosa quanta Chytroeisphaeridium chytroides,

shows that back in the Pliocene Epoch, the carbon levels were around the same as they are now. Scientists have stated that the Pliocene had forests in the high arctic which shows the warm climate we used to have 3 million years ago. To see how the earth may react, scientists are looking back to other warm periods of the earth such as the cretaceous. Scientists believe the climate during the Pliocene was around 66 degrees higher in some areas. Scientists can look back at the Pliocene era to use as a guide

Kourtney Baley Professor Marcom Anthropology 2:30-3:50 April 17, 2011 A Comparison of Three Australopithecines Just to make it fair for all readers , the Australopithecus is the genus of Pliocene and Pleistocene hominids. A major characteristic of a hominid is bipedal locomotion or walking upright on two legs. Several types of Australopithecines have been found but all lived Africa mostly east Africa about four million years ago. The Australopithecus is the first definite hominid but they

My name is Sean Keefe and I am an intern for the recently deceased Harvey Manfrenjensenjen. While sorting through samples I came across 6 hominin skulls that lack analysis. In this project, I am going to explain and talk about the six skulls in the Anthropology Department that I found. To do this, I will use what I have learned in lecture, as well as numerous outside sources to describe three defining characteristics for each skull. Additionally, I will provide necessary information about each

According to Ms. Witsaman, evolution is not the theory of how life began, which is a common misconception nowadays, but the theory of how life has changed over time. Theories are predictions which are backed up by several evidences and supported by scientists. The evidences that scientists use now to prove include fossils, homologous structures, analogous structures, vestigial structures, embryology, biogeography, and biochemicals. Fossils are the remains of living things that once roamed the Earth

Australopithecine or Australopith, is an informal term used, primarily, to describe all species in the, related, Australopithecus and Paranthropus genera (McHenry 2017). The clade does, however, also include; Sahelanthropus tchadensis (7–6 mya), Orrorin tugenensis (6 mya), Ardipithecus kadabba and Ardipithecus ramidus (5.8–4.4 mya), Kenyanthropus platyops (3.5–3.2 mya), and other human-like primates (McHenry 2017; Szpak 2017). The distribution of Australopithecines stretches across Africa, encompassing

volcanic plateau overlying the thick sequence of flood basalt. Hofmann, et al., (1997) Coulie et al., (2001), Ukistins et al., (2002), Kieffer et al., (2004) provide absolute 40Ar/39Ar age determination on Oligocene-Miocene flood volcanics and Miocene -Pliocene volcanoes from the western Ethiopian plateau. The upper Miocene strata are conformable, with no evidence for faulting or extensive erosion during the intervening period (~24 to ~11 Ma). The pre-rift flood volcanics and syn-rift units show a regional

deduced that this difference was because of the extinction of older forms and the evolution of living forms during the time that the rocks were being deposited. He divided the Tertiary rocks into three sub-ages: the Pliocene, the Miocene, and the Eocene. 90% of the fossil molluscs in Pliocene rocks were living today. In the Miocene rocks, only 18% of the molluscs were of living species, and in Eocene rocks, only 9.5%.” (Polly et al.,

has been dated at 5.3 to 6.4 Ma (Fleck, 1970; Hay et al., 1986). Pliocene to Pleistocene sediments composes the basin fill in the Amargosa desert, with most of the rocks comprising Mg-rich clay deposits of Pliocene age. The exposed parts of the Pliocene basin rocks are dominated by clays and carbonate rocks on the eastern part of the basin with comparatively few outcrops on the western part of the basin. Thickness of the Pliocene sequence may be 300 m thick in the Ash Meadows area (Naffe, 1963)