What is the Miocene?
Q: What is the Miocene?
A: The Miocene is the first epoch of the Neogene period and the fourth of the Cainozoic. It started about 23 million years ago and ended about 5.33 million years ago.
Q: Who named the Miocene?
A: Charles Lyell named the Miocene.
Q: What does “Miocene” mean?
A: The name comes from the Greek words μείων (meiōn, “less”) and καινός (kainos, “new”) and means "less recent", because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene.
Q: How did climate change affect biota during this period?
A: Climate change caused biota to become more 'modern' as it became more like today's climate.
Q: What animals existed at that time?
A: About 100 species of ape lived at that time in Africa, Asia and Europe. Cetaceans were very common in seas, including a gigantic shark called Carcharodon megalodon which may have preyed on them. Mammalian browsers were less common but grazer species became more common while whales, seals, and kelp spread throughout oceans. Modern sharks also appeared during this period as well as grasslands becoming more common.
Q: What event marked when this period began or ended?
A: The rock beds that mark when this period began or ended are well known but exact dates are uncertain since they are not set at any particular world wide event but rather regional boundaries between warmer Oligocene and cooler Pliocene epochs.
