The Paleocene (symbol P_ε) or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about ( to ). It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. As with most other older geologic periods, the strata that define the epoch's beginning and end are well identified but the exact date of the end is uncertain.

The Paleocene Epoch immediately followed the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous, known as the K–T boundary (Cretaceous - Tertiary), which marks the demise of non-avian dinosaurs, the giant marine reptiles and much other fauna and flora. The die-off of the dinosaurs left unfilled ecological niches worldwide, and the name "Paleocene" comes from Greek and refers to the "old(er)" (, ''palaios'') – "new" (, ''kainos'') fauna that arose during the epoch, before modern mammalian orders emerged in the Eocene.

Boundaries and subdivisions

The K–T boundary that marks the separation between Cretaceous and Paleocene is visible in the geological record of much of the Earth by a discontinuity in the fossil fauna, with high iridium levels. There is also fossil evidence of abrupt changes in flora and fauna. There is some evidence that a substantial but very short-lived climatic change may have happened in the very early decades of the Paleocene. There are several theories about the cause of the K-T extinction event, with most evidence supporting the impact of a 10 km diameter asteroid forming the buried Chicxulub crater on the coast of Yucatan, Mexico.

The end of the Paleocene (55.5/54.8 Ma) was marked by one of the most significant periods of global change during the Cenozoic. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum upset oceanic and atmospheric circulation and led to the extinction of numerous deep-sea benthic foraminifera and a major turnover in mammals on land.

The Paleocene is divided into three stages, from youngest to oldest:

{| | Thanetian | ( – ) |- | Selandian | ( – ) |- | Danian | ( – ) |}

Additionally, the Paleocene is divided into six Mammal Paleogene zones.

Climate

The early Paleocene was cooler and dryer than the preceding Cretaceous, though temperatures rose sharply during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. The climate became warm and humid worldwide towards the Eocene boundary, with subtropical vegetation growing in Greenland and Patagonia, crocodiles swimming off the coast of Greenland, and early primates evolving in tropical palm forests of northern Wyoming. The Earth's poles were cool and temperate; North America, Europe, Australia and southern South America were warm and temperate; equatorial areas had tropical climates; and north and south of the equatorial areas, climates were hot and arid.

Paleogeography

In many ways, the Paleocene continued processes that had begun during the late Cretaceous Period. During the Paleocene, the continents continued to drift toward their present positions. Supercontinent Laurasia had not yet separated into three continents - Europe and Greenland were still connected, North America and Asia were still intermittently joined by a land bridge, while Greenland and North America were beginning to separate. The Laramide orogeny of the late Cretaceous continued to uplift the Rocky Mountains in the American west, which ended in the succeeding epoch.

South and North America remained separated by equatorial seas (they joined during the Neogene); the components of the former southern supercontinent Gondwanaland continued to split apart, with Africa, South America, Antarctica and Australia pulling away from each other. Africa was heading north towards Europe, slowly closing the Tethys Ocean, and India began its migration to Asia that would lead to a tectonic collision and the formation of the Himalayas.

The inland seas in North America (Western Interior Seaway) and Europe had receded by the beginning of the Paleocene, making way for new land-based flora and fauna.

Oceans

Warm seas circulated throughout the world, including the poles. The earliest Paleocene featured a low diversity and abundance of marine life, but this trend reversed later in the epoch. Tropical conditions gave rise to abundant marine life, including coral reefs. With the demise of marine reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous, sharks became the top predators. At the end of the Cretaceous, the ammonites and many species of foraminifera became extinct.

Marine fauna also came to resemble modern fauna, with only the marine mammals and the Carcharhinid sharks missing.

Flora

Terrestrial Paleocene strata immediately overlying the K–T boundary is in places marked by a "fern spike": a bed especially rich in fern fossils. Ferns are often the first species to colonize areas damaged by forest fires; thus the fern spike may indicate post-Chicxulub crater devastation.

In general, the Paleocene is marked by the development of modern plant species. Cacti and palm trees appeared. Paleocene and later plant fossils are generally attributed to modern genera or to closely related taxa.

The warm temperatures worldwide gave rise to thick tropical, sub-tropical and deciduous forest cover around the globe (the first recognizably modern rain forests) with ice-free polar regions covered with coniferous and deciduous trees. With no large grazing dinosaurs to thin them, Paleocene forests were probably denser than those of the Cretaceous.

Flowering plants (angiosperms), first seen in the Cretaceous, continued to develop and proliferate, and along with them coevolved the insects that fed on these plants and pollinated them.

Fauna

Mammals

Mammals had first appeared in the Triassic, evolving from advanced cynodonts, and developed alongside the dinosaurs, exploiting ecological niches untouched by the larger and more famous Mesozoic animals: in the insect-rich forest underbrush and high up in the trees. These smaller mammals (as well as birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects) survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous which wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs, and mammals diversified and spread throughout the world.

While early mammals were small nocturnal animals that mostly ate soft plant material and small animals such as insects, the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and the beginning of the Paleocene saw mammals growing bigger and occupying a wider variety of ecological niches. Ten million years after the death of the non-avian dinosaurs, the world was filled with rodent-like mammals, medium sized mammals scavenging in forests, and large herbivorous and carnivorous mammals hunting other mammals, birds, and reptiles.

Fossil evidence from the Paleocene is scarce, and there is relatively little known about mammals of the time. Because of their small size (constant until late in the epoch) early mammal bones are not well-preserved in the fossil record, and most of what we know comes from fossil teeth (a much tougher substance), and only a few skeletons.

Paleocene mammals did not yet have specialized teeth or limbs, and their brain to body mass ratios were quite low; compared to later forms, they are considered primitive, or archaic. It was not until the Eocene, 55 Ma, that true modern mammals developed.

Mammals of the Paleocene include:

Monotremes: three species of monotremes have survived to modern times: the Platypus, and two species of Echidnas. ''Monotrematum sudamericanum'' lived during the Paleocene.

Marsupials: modern kangaroos are marsupials, characterized by giving birth to embryonic babies, who crawl into the mother's pouch and suckle until they are developed. The Bolivian ''Pucadelphys andinus'' is a Paleocene example.

Multituberculates: the only major branch of mammals to become extinct since the K–T boundary, this rodent-like grouping includes the Paleocene ''Ptilodus''.

Placentals: this grouping of mammals became the most diverse and the most successful. Members include primates, plesiadapids, and hoofed ungulates, including the condylarths and the carnivorous mesonychids.

Reptiles

Because of the climatic conditions of the Paleocene, reptiles were more widely distributed over the globe than at present. Among the sub-tropical reptiles found in North America during this epoch are champsosaurs (aquatic reptiles that resemble modern gharials), crocodilia, soft-shelled turtles, palaeophi snakes, varanid lizards, and ''Protochelydra zangerli '' (similar to modern snapping turtles).

Examples of champsosaurs of the Paleocene include ''Champsosaurus gigas'', the largest champsosaur ever discovered. This creature was unusual among Paleocene reptiles in that ''C. gigas'' became larger than its known Mesozoic ancestors: ''C. gigas'' is more than twice the length of the largest Cretaceous specimens (3 meters versus 1.5 meters). Reptiles as a whole decreased in size after the K-T event. Champsosaurs declined towards the end of the Paleocene and became extinct during the Miocene.

Examples of Paleocene crocodylians are ''Borealosuchus'' (formerly ''Leidyosuchus'') ''formidabilis'', the apex predator and the largest animal of the Wannagan Creek fauna, and the alligatorid ''Wannaganosuchus''.

Non-avian dinosaurs may have survived to some extent into the early Danian stage of the Paleocene Epoch circa 64.5 Mya. The controversial evidence for such is a hadrosaur leg bone found from Paleocene strata in New Mexico; but such stray late forms may be derived fossils.

Birds

Birds began to re-diversify during the epoch, occupying new niches. Most modern bird types had appeared by mid-Cenozoic, including perching birds, cranes, hawks, pelicans, herons, owls, ducks, pigeons, loons, and woodpeckers.

Large carnivorous flightless birds have been found in late Paleocene deposits, including the fearsome ''Gastornis'' in Europe and North America, and terror birds in South America (the latter survived until the Pleistocene).

In the late Paleocene, early owl types appeared, such as ''Ogygoptynx'' in the United States and ''Berruornis'' in France.

References

Ogg, Jim; June, 2004, ''Overview of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSP's)'' http://www.stratigraphy.org/gssp.htm Accessed Dec. 22, 2008.

External links

Paleocene Mammals

BBC Changing Worlds: Paleocene

Maryland Paleocene Fossils

Paleos: Paleocene

Paleocene Evolutionary Radiation

PaleoMap Project

John Alroy, "Evidence of a Paleocene Evolutionary Radiation"

Paleocene Microfossils: 35+ images of Foraminifera

Category:Cenozoic

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name	Yu Dafu
birth date	December 07, 1896
birth place	Fuyang, Zhejiang, China
death date	September 17, 1945
occupation	Short Story writer and Poet
website	}}

Yu Dafu () (December 7, 1896—September 17, 1945). Born in Fuyang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was a modern Chinese short story writer and poet.

Early years

Yu Dafu's father died when he was three, leaving the family poverty-stricken and destitute. He received a number of scholarships through the Chinese government and went on to receive a traditional Chinese education in Hangzhou. Chronologically he studied in Jiangxing-Fu Middle School (before he came to Hangzhou), Hangzhou-Fu Middle School, Yuying Academy (育英学堂, formerly of Zhejiang University).

In 1912, he entered Hangchow University (later its major part merged into Zhejiang University) preparatory through examination. He was there only for a short period before he was expelled for participation in a student strike.

He then moved to Japan, where he studied economics at the Tokyo Imperial University between 1913 and 1922, where he met other Chinese intellectuals (namely, Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping and Tian Han). Together, in 1921 they founded the ''Chuangzao she'' 創造社 ("Creation Society"), which promoted vernacular and modern literature. One of his earlier works ''Chenlun'' 沉淪, also his most famous, published in Japan in 1921. The work had gained immense popularity in China, shocking the world of Chinese literature with its frank dealing with sex, as well as grievances directed at the incompetence of Chinese government at the time.

In 1922, he returned to China as a literary celebrity and worked as the editor of ''Creation Quarterly'', editing journals and writing short stories. In 1923, after an attack of tuberculosis, Yu Dafu directed his attention to the welfare of the masses.

In 1927, he worked as an editor of the ''Hongshui'' literary magazine. He later came in conflict with the Communist Party of China and fled back to Japan.

Second Sino-Japanese war

After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war, he returned to China and worked as a writer of anti-Japanese propaganda in Hangzhou, and later in Zhejiang. From 1938 to 1942, he worked as a literary editor for the newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh in Singapore.

In 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Singapore, he was forced to flee to Sumatra. Known under a different identity, he settled there among other overseas Chinese and began a brewery business with the help of the locals. Later he was forced to help the Japanese military police as an interpreter when it was discovered that he was one of the few "locals" in the area who could speak Japanese.

In 1945, he was arrested by the Kempeitai when his true identity was finally discovered. It is believed that he was executed by the Japanese shortly after the surrender of Japan.

Works

''Chenlun'' 沉淪 "''Sinking''" (1921)

''Riji jiuzhong'' 日記九種 “''Nine Diaries''” (1927)

''Guoqu'' 過去 “''The Past''" (1927)

his first novel?? (1928) (moderately successful)

his second novel?? (1932)

''Chuben'' 出奔 "''Flight''" (1935)

His most popular work, breaking all Chinese sales records, was ''Jih-chi chiu-chung'' "''Nine Diaries''", which detailed his affair with the writer Wang Ying-hsin. The most critically acclaimed work is ''Kuo-ch'u'' or "''The Past''", written in 1927.

References

Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, article- "Yü Ta-fu"

External links

Category:1896 births Category:1945 deaths Category:Chinese expatriates in Japan Category:Hangzhou High School alumni Category:People from Hangzhou Category:Republic of China poets Category:University of Tokyo alumni Category:Zhejiang University alumni

de:Yu Dafu es:Yu Dafu fr:Yu Dafu it:Yu Dafu ja:郁達夫 no:Yu Dafu zh:郁達夫