Cenozoic Era | 9/17/18-9/21/18

Homo Sapiens: 15,000 Years Ago by Neil R

Summary:

       "The geologic time scale uses events, or huge things that have happened, instead of years to refer to different sections of Earth's history." as said in the article titled "Tic-Toc-Time" by Rocketlit. Geologic time is split into three types of measures of time, those measures being eons, eras, and periods. One era in the geologic time scale is the Cenozoic Era. One important thing to note about the Cenozoic Era is that it is the current era that we (humans) are living in. This era is split into two different periods, the Tertiary period and the Quaternary period. The Tertiary period lasted from 66 million years ago to 1.8 million years ago. The Quaternary period has lasted from 1.8 million years ago to present time. The major events that occured in the Cenozoic Era is the rise of the homo sapiens (humans) which occurred and is still occuring in the Quaternary Period. Other major events are the aftermath and transition of earth after it's great mass extinction (Tertiary Period) and the end of the last Ice Age (Quaternary Period). The main types of animals and plants that lived during the Cenozoic Era are mammals and flowering plants as after the mass extinction, we saw the age of the mammals come to be. In terms of the position of continents for the Cenozoic Era, they are just as they are now due to how the Cenozoic Era is the current era.

S&EP6: Constructing explanations and designing solutions:

       I constructed an explanation of why the Cenozoic Era saw the rise of the mammals when I was researching the major events of the Cenozoic Era. The reason the Cenozoic Era saw the rise of the mammals is the same reason the Cenozoic Era began in the first place, the mass extinction. This event (mass extinction) took place at the end of the Mesozoic Era and saw a huge chunk of the population die. The Mesozoic Era is known as the age of the reptiles meaning that most of the population was reptiles. This also means that many reptiles died from the mass extinction. In result this allowed for mammals to flourish and thrive without tons of reptiles trying to stop them (one of those reptiles being dinosaurs). This is why the Cenozoic Era saw the rise of the mammals, because so many reptiles died during the mass extinction event at the end of the Mesozoic Era.

XCC-Cause and Effect:

        The cause and effect relationship I identified this week has to do with the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic era. The Mesozoic Era saw the biggest mass extinction event in Earth's history as 80% of the population died. Geologic time is measured based on major events which this event was. Due to this major event of a vast majority of the population dying, scientists decided that this would be a great time to mark an end of an era, and the beginning of a new era. So the cause of the relationship is the mass extinction, the effect is scientists deciding that this should be the end of the Mesozoic era and the start of the Cenozoic era. The other cause and effect relationship I identified has to do with the East Himalaya Mountains. The cause of this relationship is Indian and Eurasian plates colliding in a convergent plate boundary. The result of this was the formation of the Himalayan Mountains.