Pliocene
Sites whose OUV derives entirely or significantly from the Pliocene Epoch, the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present.
Connected Sites
| Site | Rationale | Link |
| Archipiélago de Revillagigedo | "Clarion is the westernmost and oldest island (early Pliocene). Rota Partida is a rocky islet and is the throat of an old volcano. It is younger than Clarion but older than Socorro, the largest island (early Pleistocene), and San Benedicto, the youngest and northernmost island (late Pleistocene)." See | |
| Cape Floral Region | on the basis of unchanged landform since then, period of most speciation and establishment of general climate patterns as of today despite subsequent ups/downs: "While the radiation of Cape clades occurred throughout the late Cenozoic, speciation was most prolific during the Pliocene." | |
| Central Amazon Conservation Complex | Aufgrund der damit verbundenen Sperrung des Abflusses kehrte sich vor circa 10 bis 15 Millionen Jahren der Flusslauf um. Weil aber zunächst im Zentrum des Amazonasbeckens eine Hebung stattfand, geschah dies in zwei Phasen: Während die Osthänge bereits über einen Amazonas-Vorläufer in den Atlantik entwässerten, bildeten sich auf der Westseite riesige Binnenseen, deren Ablagerungen heute großenteils den Untergrund der Terra firme ausmachen. Erst als diese Seen nach rund fünf Millionen Jahren ebenfalls nach Osten entwässerten, konnte sich das heutige Flussnetz entwickeln. (Wiki) | |
| Cocos Island | An Argon-Potassium radiometric determination established the age of the oldest rocks between 1.91 and 2.44 million years (Late Pliocene). Wiki | |
| Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands | This is the result of millions of years of uninterrupted evolution and speciation processes within the Colchic Pliocene refugium. (AB ev) | |
| El Pinacate | The volcanoes have erupted sporadically for about 4 million years. (Wiki) | |
| Fossil Hominid Sites | Sterkfontein geologically revealed the earliest record of hominid in southern Africa (close to 3.5 million years ago), Australopithecus africanus who lived between 2-3 million years ago in the Pliocene | |
| Greater Blue Mountains | The Greater Blue Mountains area is the centre of diversity of eucalypts, providing an outstanding record of the products of evolutionary processes associated with the global climatic changes of the late Tertiary and the Quaternary. (nom file) | |
| Gunung Mulu | Major uplift that occurred during the late Pliocene to Pleistocene is well represented in the 295 km of explored caves as a series of major cave levels (crit viii) | |
| Göreme NP and Cappadocia | This layer of tuff was in turn overlain by a series of andesitic and basaltic lavas, between the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene. (EOearth) | |
| Kilimanjaro National Park | the important thing about Kilimanjaro is the late emergence within the Rift Valley setting – this was largely within the last 3 million years. | |
| Lake Turkana | This property's main geological features stem from the Pliocene and Holocene periods (4million to 10,000 years old). (Nom file) | |
| Lower Valley of the Awash | Lucy, 3.2 million years ago | |
| Lower Valley of the Omo | The oldest sediments are 3.5 Million years old (Pliocene). | |
| Mount Kenya | Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano that was active in the Plio-Pleistocene (wiki) / It is an ancient extinct volcano, which during its period of activity (3.1-2.6 million years ago) is thought to have risen to 6,500 m (AB ev) | |
| Ohrid Region | The Ohrid and Prespa Lakes belong to a group of Dessaret basins that originated from a geotectonic depression during the Pliocene epoch up to five million years ago (Wiki) | |
| Okapi Wildlife Reserve | "The end of the Pliocene epoch (2.5-6 million years ago) saw a number of long necked giraffids evolve, but largely unsuccessfully with only 2 surving to this day" | |
| Redwood | In its limited coastal location it "escaped" the last Ice Age. "Seqouia sempervirens had reached its northernmost limits during the Paleocene and Eocene, 65 MYA to 38 MYA. It is known to have been on the islands of Svalbard, today part of Norway and well above the Arctic Circle (Snyder 1992). During the Oligocene and Miocene, 38 MYA to 6 MYA, its range had moved south due to cooler and drier climates, and by the Pliocene it had become established in its present location" | |
| Rwenzori Mountains | The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late Pliocene as a result of an uplifted block of crystalline rocks such as: gneiss, amphibolite granite and quartzite,[1] "pushed up by tremendous forces originating deep within the earth's crust". (Wiki) | |
| Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino | Despite this bias, diagnostic gray whale fossils have been reported from both Pleistocene and late Pliocene marine strata of the North Pacific basin, attesting to the origin of this lineage prior to the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation in the late Pliocene. | |
| Xinjiang Tianshan | The landforms and ecosystems of the site have been preserved since the Pliocene epoch (Brief Description) |
Suggestions?
Do you know of another WHS we could connect to Pliocene?
A connection should:
- Not be "self evident"
- Link at least 3 different sites
- Not duplicate or merely subdivide the "Category" assignment already identified on this site.
- Add some knowledge or insight (whether significant or trivial!) about WHS for the users of this site
- Be explained, with reference to a source