Oligocene
pronunciation
How to pronounce Oligocene in British English:
UK [ɔˈliɡəusi:n]
How to pronounce Oligocene in American English:
US [ˈɑlɪɡoˌsin, ˈolɪ-]
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- Noun:
- from 40 million to 25 million years ago; appearance of sabertoothed cats
Word Origin
- Oligocene (adj.)
- 1856, "pertaining to the Tertiary period between the Eocene and the Miocene," coined in German (1854) by Heinrich Ernst von Beyrich, from oligo- "small, little, few" + -cene. So called because few modern fossils were found in Oligocene rocks.
Example
- 1. Note that the world 's richest deposits of fossils from the oligocene epoch are found in the badlands .
- 2. Fossil plants from the eocene and oligocene epochs indicate that what 's now the qinghai-tibet plateau enjoyed a tropical-subtropical rainforest environment with growing areas of temperate flora in some mountainous areas .
- 3. They have also unearthed some clues from the ensuing oligocene , when the modern suborders of cetaceans-the mysticetes ( baleen whales ) and the odontocetes ( toothed whales ) - arose .
- 4. Since tha latest of cretaceous , the xiihu sag had been undergoing rifting stage during the paleocene and the eocene , inversion stagc during the oligocene and the miocene , and regional subsidence stage during the pliocene and the quaternary .
- 5. Larger foraminifera from the upper oligocene of the venetian area , north-east italy .