The World recovers

Primaeval forests spread in the Palaeocene Period

The Paleocene marked the beginning of the Earth's modern era about 65 million years ago. After the great asteroid impact, which, among other things, caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, planet earth recovered within a few thousand years.

Primaeval forests spread, in which those mammals that were small enough to survive the natural catastrophe began to thrive. Slowly, the precursors of ungulates, elephants, rodents, primates, bats, whales, and manatees evolved.

Although the average temperatures at the beginning of the Paleocene were about 2 to 3 degrees lower than those of the preceding Cretaceous period, the climate was overall much warmer and wetter than today. Subtropical vegetation thrived in Greenland and Patagonia, while the North and South Poles had temperate climates.

The Paleocene marked the beginning of the global rise of mammals. But while the mammals initially remained small, the egg-laying birds, the descendants of the dinosaurs, grew into giants that were over two metres tall.