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Tertiary
Tertiary
is the former term for the
geologic period
from 66 million to 2.58 million years ago, a time span that lies between the superseded
Secondary period
and the
Quaternary
. The Tertiary is no longer recognized as a formal unit by the
International Commission on Stratigraphy
, but the word is still widely used. The traditional span of the Tertiary has been divided between the
Paleogene
and
Neogene
Periods and extends to the first stage of the
Pleistocene
Epoch, the
Gelasian
age. The period began with the demise of the non-
avian
dinosaurs
in the
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
, at the start of the
Cenozoic Era
, and extended to the beginning of the
Quaternary glaciation
at the end of the
Pliocene Epoch
.
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