Earth and Environment Atlas

How The Planet Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme

Switch Atlas

The Inner World

The Civil World

The Natural World

Eras

Cenozoic

see-nuh-ZOH-ik
Also Known As Age of Mammals

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

The current era, opening the moment the Chicxulub impact ended the Mesozoic, and holding the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs among others; the age of mammals, including us.

Facts
Rank
Era 1
Start (Million Years Ago)
66 1
Marked by the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary per the cited article.
End (Million Years Ago)
0 2
The Cenozoic is the current, ongoing era; 0 Mya marks the present day, the standard geologic timescale convention for an open upper boundary.
Key Event
The rise of mammals into the ecological space the non-avian dinosaurs left empty, continuing to the present day. 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Encompasses

Holocene, Eras
Source Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)
Neogene, Eras
Paleogene, Eras
Pleistocene, Eras
Source Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)

In Discipline

Geochronology, Disciplines
Source Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)

Part Of

Phanerozoic, Eras
Source Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationView the Source
2. Cenozoic (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction
Quote, Introduction
The Cenozoic is commonly known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammals
View the Source
2. Cenozoic (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Quote, Lead section
is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.