fashionlover99's+Quaternary+Project

Before, during and after the Quaternary

Climate and ecosystems in the Quaternary have been drastically changed by human activity.

Before the Quaternary (also known as “Age of Mammals”), mammals started to evolve and dominate, as well as flowering plants, while the continents moved to the places where they are today and several ice ages occurred. During the Quaternary, hominids evolve and become homo sapiens (modern-day humans), giant mammals flourish and ice ages continue to occur. In the late Quaternary, the Earth experiences [|global warming], which will probably continue after the Quaternary and cause mass extinctions. Nobody knows what will happen after the Age of Mammals. Scientists predict that there will be a 6th mass extinction caused by humans, although it’s possible for there to be life on Earth until the sun dies in several billion years.

Climate and plate tectonics

The continents in the Quaternary were similar to the way they are today, but the climate was different.

Massachusetts was in the northern hemisphere, and so was most of the land in the Quaternary. The climate in the early Quaternary was different than it is today because several ice ages occurred and caused the temperature to be very low. During the most relevant ice ages, most of North America and Eurasia were covered in glaciers. When the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago the climate became warmer, since most cold weather in this time period was due to glaciations. In the late Quaternary, or today, the temperature is increasing faster than it ever has in the history of the world. This increase is caused by global warming, the result of pollution by humans. Scientists believe that no more ice ages will occur because of global warming.

Landforms and fossils Glaciers in the Quaternary were forming some of the landforms that are in New England today. Rocks from this time period can be found anywhere on the planet. Most of the landforms forming are glacial landforms like drumlins, kettle ponds and moraines. Some mountains were formed but others were “growing” because of plate tectonic movement. Examples of landforms formed in the Quaternary are the Great Lakes, the Boston Harbor i slands and Mount Rainier. [|Fossils]found from this time period are of mammals and plants, and some of these were found in tar pits.

Life Mammals and blossoming plants dominate.

Animals that form in this time period are giant mammals and humans. Modern-day humans evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago. The giant mammals were like some mammals nowadays, except larger and with thicker skin to survive during the ice ages and features that made it easier to hunt. These giant mammals became extinct 13,000 years ago. No one knows exactly why, but some theories are that humans started hunting too much, diseases spread, the climate changed or that all of these things happened at the same time. Most of the land was covered in glaciers and/or grasslands. During the Tertiary South America was isolated, which caused rare species to evolve. These animals, like giant ground sloths and giant aardvarks also existed in the Quaternary.



To see the bibliography for my project click here. To see the bibliography for my pictures click here. Project Reflection: I really liked doing my project on the Quaternary. The reason why I chose this time period was because I wanted to do work on hominids and because sometimes in Science I have a harder time relating to things that happened a very long time ago. I also chose the Quaternary because the animals in the Quaternary were similar to the ones today and since we had done a short unit on global warming, I thought I could apply this to my project. I learned a lot while doing this project. I learned about the giant mammals in the Quaternary and how they had features that are different from the ones animals have nowadays.