Eocene and Paleocene
From the Late Cretaceous to the Present rifts separated Africa from South America and then India, Australia, and Antarctica. North America rifted away from Europe. Then the rifted masses of old Gondwana, Africa, India, and Australia, moved northward towards Eurasia, closing the Tethys Ocean and forming the great Alpine-Himalayan mountains. As the process continues, a new super continent appears to be in the near geologic future, centered about the North Pole.
As plate positions continue to adjust to the opening of the Atlantic, The Rocky Mountains grow and the Alps and Pyrenees are formed. The modern patterns of Planet Earth begin to appear.
Paleogeographic globes
040 Ma
Tectonics, Sedimentation, Paleogeography of North Atlantic Region
060 Ma
040 Ma
1st Order Global Tectonic Features
060 Ma
040 Ma
Link to other time periods
Cambrian
Ordovician
Silurian
Devonian
Mississippian
Pennsylvanian
Permian
Triassic
Jurassic
Early Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous
Miocene
Present
