Pliocene

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)

team describe her findings as, “… Here we report on new fossils discovered west of Lake Turkana, Kenya, which differ markedly from those of contemporary A. afarensis, indicating that hominin taxonomic diversity extended back, well into the middle Pliocene. A 3.5 million year old cranium, showing a unique combination of derived facial and primitive neurocranial features, is assigned to a new genus of hominin. Theses finding point to an early diet-driven

argue that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are simply the result of a natural phenomenon. Some even cite the rising levels which ushered in the Pliocene as evidence of this. However, what they fail to express is that these changes are happening on a completely different timescale. The climate change which ushered in the Pliocene was slow and gradual, taking hundreds of thousands of years for carbon dioxide levels to build up to the 400 ppm which caused the temperature of the planet at

widespread DAVIS AND LAGOE 1988 – CENOZOIC EVENTS (EOCENE TO Q) AFFECTING THE W AND SW MARGINS OF THE SAN JOAQIN VALLEY Big picture summary of 1,2,3,4,5 MIOCENE BASIN FORMATION reason and evidence for subsidence (Bridges and Castle 2001?) plus D&L Pliocene NON-WRENCH TECTONICS The Harding (1976) characterization of the wrench tectonics east of the SAN ANDREAS FAULT has been largely argued to be incorrect (Mount and Suppe, 1987, Namson and Davis, 1988). These authors developed a model of transpressional

consists of Coarse grained Devonian Granite, sediments of marine sands from the Pliocene period. However, it also consisted of Non-marine sand outwash from the most recent Alluvium period. Alkaline Olivine Basalt from the Palaeocene period is noted to be along the Pentland Hills. The hills at Rowsley are known to be built up with younger formations these are known to consist of Oligocene tertiary sediments and Pliocene Alluvium plains which lie in between the Basalt ridges. In addition to the Volcanic

of tart, wild fruit, as was seasonally available. There was far more plant material in the diets of our more recent ancestors than our more ancient hominid ancestors, due to different factors. The current ice age (yes, “current”), known as the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, started about 2.58 million years ago, around the time the first hominids appeared, during the

EASTERN AUSTRALIA Eastern Uplands Proof of volcanic activity related to the break-up of Australia and Antarctica is seen at Bunbury, which is located 150km south of Perth, at the point where the basalt is of early Cretaceous, also on the middle Jurassic Kangaroo Island. However, evidence of Cenozoic eruptions is only seen in Eastern Highland. All through the Cenozoic, hot spot volcanic event transpire (Sutherland et al., 1985). Most of these events follow the Miocene (Stephenson et al., 1980) with

Australopithecus africanus In the greatest debate of anthropology lies the all consuming desire to know where we as humans come from. Who were our ancestors and what made them so different from us? It is debated if A. africanus or Australopithecus afarensis is the direct ancestor of the genus Homo. Through critical evaluation of the features of the skeleton, dentition, and use of bipedality, it is evident that A. africanus is a direct ancestor to modern humans while possessing features from both

event on Earth about 2.59 million years ago could have been a result from a supernova explosion. It is believed that cosmic rays from a supernova could have potentially altered the climate and led to the minor mass extinction towards the end of the Pliocene epoch and at the beginning of the Pleistocene. Researchers ran computer simulations of supernovas and focused on how the affects could have changed Earth’s climate and biosphere. Supernovas are either created from a star that runs out of fuel or

Antarctica is the fifth largest Continent on the world map which covers close to 14.2 million square kilometres of land space that includes the ice sheets which unfolds onto the sea (Martin, 2013). Antarctica once used to be part of Gondwana supercontinent until it fragmented itself 70 million years ago and moved to the South Pole making it isolated from other land areas (Martin, 2013). Antarctica was once ice free, had temperatures well above freezing point and was also filled with greeneries forty