Chapter 16 - Life of the Cenozoic

The Earth Through Time, 10th Edition

by Harold L. Levin

Chapter 16—Life of the Cenozoic

Web Links

Age of Mammals
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec03/b65lec03.htm

Overview of the evolution of mammals. From Biodiversity and Conservation: A Hypertext Book by Peter J. Bryant, University of California, Irvine.

Fossil Horse Cyber Museum
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/firstCM.htm

Gallery of fossil horses (click on each skull to learn more about the ancient horses), tutorial on toes and hooves, stratigraphy, and fossils in the context of geological time. From the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Green River Formation
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc/greenriver.html

Overview of an important fossil locality in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, best known for its fossil fish. Also contains fossils of plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals (including the oldest fossil bat) deposited in a large inland lake. Includes a discussion of fossilization and links to photo galleries. University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology.

Florissant Formation
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc/florissant.html

Overview of an important fossil locality in Colorado, best known for its fossilized insects. Also contains huge stumps of petrified redwood trees, plant fossils, snails, and other animal fossils buried in volcanic ash in a lake deposit. University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology.

Ashfall: Life and Death at a Nebraska Waterhole Ten Million Years Ago
http://www-museum.unl.edu/research/vertpaleo/afbindex.html

Hundreds of fossil skeletons are found in a volcanic ash bed in northeastern Nebraska, including well-preserved fossil rhinos, horses, camels, and birds. See the interactive map of the Rhino Barn skeletons; click on the skeletons for information about each individual. From the University of Nebraska State Museum.

La Brea Tar Pits
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/labrea.html

Visit Pleistocene fossils preserved in tar pits associated with an oil field in Los Angeles, including at least 59 species of mammal and over 135 species of bird, along with plants, mollusks, and insects. University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology.

Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits
http://www.tarpits.org/

The website of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Explore the tar pits and discover mammal skeletons including sabertoothed cat, dire wolf, ground sloth, mammoths. See a children's story about an ice age adventure.

The Life and Times of Long Dead Sharks
http://www.elasmo.com/frameMe.html?file=paleo/fauna/va_eoc.html&menu=bin/menu_fauna-alt.html

Photographs of many types of sharks teeth from many localities including:

· Early Eocene Sharks & Rays of Virginia

· Lee Creek aka Aurora - A Neogene Fauna from North Carolina

· Late Palaeocene Sharks & Rays of the Chesapeake Bay Region

· Cretaceous Sharks & Rays of North Carolina

· Upper Cretaceous Sharks & Rays of Kansas The Great Interior Sea

· Peedee (Cretaceous) Faunal List from Lake Waccamaw, NC

· And many more

Mammoths and Mastodons

http://skywalker.cochise.edu/wellerr/students/mammoth-mastodon/mastodon.htm

Discussion of these two large mammoths and their demise.

Ice Ages and the Midwestern U.S. 16,000 Years Ago
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/

Online Exhibit from the Illinois State Museum. Learn about when and why the Ice Ages occurred, and visit the Late Pleistocene landscape of 16,000 years ago to see fossil plants and animals, and maps of melting glaciers. Learn about the Late Pleistocene extinctions and visit a cave where the fossils are found.