Small mollusks and big cooling: Molluskan response to the Eocene-Oligocene Transition

The early Eocene was a relatively warm period during with large numbers of tropic and warm-water biotas. Global surface temperature decreased through the Middle Eocene and into the Late Eocene by 4 to 5 degrees (Prothero et al, 1994). At the end of the Late Eocene a much more rapid cooling took place, the Eocene Oligocene transition (EOT)....