Oligocene - Climate

Climate

The Paleogene Period general temperature decline is interrupted by an Oligocene 7 million year stepwise climate change. A deeper 8.2 °C, 400,000 year temperature depression leads the 2 °C, 7 million year stepwise climate change 33.5 Ma (Million years ago). The stepwise climate change began 32.5Ma and lasted through to 25.5Ma, as depicted in the PaleoTemps chart. The Oligocene climate change was a global increase in ice volume and a 55 M (181 feet) decrease in sea level (35.7-33.5 Ma) with a closely related (25.5-32.5 Ma) temperature depression. The 7 million year depression abruptly terminated within 1-2 million years of the La Garita Caldera eruption at 28-26 Ma. A deep 400,000 year glaciated Oligocene Miocene boundary event is recorded at McMurdo Sound and King George Island.

Read more about this topic:  Oligocene

Famous quotes containing the word climate:

    Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    The climate has been described as “ten months winter and two months mighty late in the fall.”
    —Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the clouds and the rain.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)