See Also: Oligocene Epoch(encyclopedia)
oligocene(medicine)
Oligocene(dictionary)
epoch(dictionary)
epoch(encyclopedia)
epoch(medicine)
New Epoch(tourism)
epoch(dictionary)
genesee epoch(medicine)
epoch-making(dictionary)

Oligocene Epoch (sh)




Major division of the Tertiary Period, from งใ 33.

7 to 23.8 million years ago. It follows the Eocene Epoch and precedes the Miocene Epoch. The term (from the Greek for "few recent forms") refers to the small number of modern animals that originated during this epoch. Oligocene climates appear to have been temperate, and many regions were nearly tropical. Grasslands expanded, and forested regions dwindled. The vertebrates of the northern continents had an essentially modern aspect that is a result less of the appearance of new forms than of the extinction of archaic vertebrates at the close of the Eocene.