Talk:Eocene

Untitled
Nothing links here. Will Pliocene, Oligocene etc all be moved to Pliocene Epoch etc.? Will all the redirects be cleaned up? Wetman 23:42, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 21:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)) Don't understand. Lots of things link here.

marsupials
"Early forms of many other modern mammalian orders appeared, including bats, proboscidians, primates, rodents and marsupials." - haven't marsupials been a separate group since the Cretaceous?

mesonychids
Whales have been thought to be descended from ancestral artiodactyls, not mesonychids, since about 2001 (Gingerich). I'd have to look up the referen

crocdile
Deinosuchus died out before the Eocene.

The Grande Coupure
A plain reference seemed likely to mystify the reader. I've made it into a subsection. The Grande Coupure is currently being placed in the earliest Oligocene, however. Perhaps someone better informed than I will look over my edits and decide where the section really belongs.--Wetman 05:56, 12 November 2006 (UTC)--Wetman 05:56, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

responce to crocodile
sience dinosucus died out before the eocene i am going to erase the part about dinosucucus. Crocadog 21:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)CROCADOG

AMK152's Geotimeboxes
AMK152 proposed in edits of 27 December 2006 a geotimebox for this article as follows:

I feel that the box information that is appropriate for the article is already in the footer, and that other extraneous information, such as previous eons, can be supplied where important, by links from the text. I removed the geotimebox and left the footer, pending discussion. --Bejnar 02:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

"Misleading" tag
To clarify: The current description of the initiation of global cooling is ambiguous and doesn't make clear the effects of the Azolla event and antarctic currents - it could be read to imply that the one caused the other. Verisimilus  T  19:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing Is Too Exclusive: Needs to Include Terms Understandable to the Average Non-Scientist Reader
Wikipedia is not a science journal. It is a public-use encyclopedia and cryptic scientific terminology should always be accompanied by a clearly understandable lay-explanation. For example, the opening of the article does not explain how long ago the Eocene occurred in terms that the average reader could readily understand. This not only violates the stated Wikipedia mission but is also a rude and snobbish approach to writing in this context (fine for science journals but inappropriate and inconsiderate when taking into account the fact that the average Wikipedia reader is not a scientist).

In summary, advanced science terminology is acceptable in Wikipeda, but should always be accompanied by easily understood lay-explanations targeted to the average public reader. Sean7phil (talk) 17:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ma is linked, I added a parenthetical note. Thanks for toning it down at the end, but please be more courteous in the future. Awickert (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Any thought to addressing Sean7phil's concerns, courteous or not? Signof4 (talk) 12:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not scientist by I like to have more accurate term and elaborate explanation available. On terminology, as long as they are linked (once per subsection minimum) I think it should be fine. On the wording, I think I can still follow it, but some reorganization and more subheadings will help. I certainly don't want any facts to be removed and definitely no valid references should be removed. Arifsaha (talk) 16:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

time
Time notation is inconsistent with notation for other epochs. For instance, Pleistocene epoch lists "X years before present" (which is intuitive). This, "lasting from 55.8 ± 0.2 to 33.9 ± 0.1 Ma (million years ago)" is relatively complicated. Perhaps unnecessarily so? Also, some articles use "mya" to abbreviate "millions of years". Which is correct? 64.53.222.219 (talk) 09:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Seems the dates could be generalized first without the ± range, then in parens include the more specific - from about 56 to 34 Ma (55.8 ± 0.2 to 33.9 ± 0.1 Ma) maybe? I see Paleocene uses the error range, but Oligocene doesn't. As to Ma vs mya, seems that Ma is preferred (based on some geochron organization "decree") though both are used. Agree that consistency would be nice :) Vsmith (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Methane
I would like to see more details about methane and water vapor. -- Brothernight (talk) 12:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Modern mammals
According to the lead,


 * The start of the Eocene is marked by the emergence of the first modern mammals.

The taxobox for Proboscidea dates the order to the Paleocene. Were early proboscideans not modern mammals? What makes a mammal modern? There is a similar statement in the Paleocene article. Peter Brown (talk) 00:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

methane's "temperature emission"?
"temperature emission" is regarding the physics nonsense, I'll change that part a little --2A02:8108:86C0:553:B099:9E0A:4539:1428 (talk) 08:59, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

When I think about it, the higher effect of methane should be neglectible anyway on a geological scale, as atmospheric methane decomposes into CO2 in mere decades. On a geological scale it's only important if there is a very constant source of methane; but then, its effect is much greater than 23-fold (because 23-fold is for a one-time-release averaged from the time of release until 100 years later, most of which time it is already CO2!). --2A02:8108:86C0:553:B099:9E0A:4539:1428 (talk) 09:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

At any given time, methane's effect is 171-fold compared to CO2 on the radiative balance (compare article "methane as a GHG") --2A02:8108:86C0:553:B099:9E0A:4539:1428 (talk) 09:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Palaeogeography
Is this header a typo or a new term I am not familiar with? I feel it should be Paleogeography Phillip Sand Hansel II
 * It's the standard UK, Commonwealth etc spelling. Not sure if that is appropriate here. Pterre (talk) 09:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Flora and Fauna
A few things that need to be improved on in these sections - a) More-less unreferenced; has some, but mostly devoid of such, and second (And far more important.)b) IT'S DAMN SHORT. This hardly does justice to Eocene fauna and fauna - Seriously, this could be an article at least this long on it's own!142.176.114.76 (talk) 00:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The section "Animal Life" is redundant to "Fauna"; it should probably merged into there, which would also result in a longer Fauna section. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Eocene. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Water vapor
After pointing out that methane decomposes into CO(2), the article says "Water vapor traps more infrared than does carbon dioxide." Given that new water vapor immediately enters the self-limiting hydrological cycle, whose residence time is on the order of ten days, how is this relevant to temperature change? Vaughan Pratt (talk) 04:45, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Reinstatement of the Tertiary
The final sentence of the 'Etymology' section suggests that the reinstatement of the Quaternary as a period 'may lead to the reinstatement of the Tertiary in the future'. Of course, its reinstatement is always possible but seems unlikely; the paper used as a reference here recommends against it. It seems to me that the lay reader of this article may take away the idea that such a reversion is more on the cards than perhaps it is. Geopersona (talk) 07:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Support rephrasing to more accurately reflect the source. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:02, 13 May 2022 (UTC)