Rupelian

The Rupelian is an important time period in Earth's history, part of the geologic timescale. It is the older of two ages in the Oligocene Epoch, which is a division of time in the Earth's history. The Rupelian lasted from about 33.9 million years ago to 27.3 million years ago.

This period comes after the Priabonian Stage, which is part of the Eocene Epoch, and is followed by the Chattian Stage. Because it marks the beginning of the Oligocene, the Rupelian is sometimes called the early Oligocene or lower Oligocene. Scientists use periods like the Rupelian to understand how Earth's climate, plants, and animals changed over millions of years.

Name

The Rupelian stage is named after the small river Rupel in Belgium, which flows into a larger river called the Scheldt. Belgian scientists chose this name, and it was first used in scientific writing in 1850 by a geologist named André Hubert Dumont. Later, scientists decided to separate the name of the rock layers (called a group) from the time period (called a stage) to make things clearer.

Stratigraphic definition

The Rupelian is an old part of a time period called the Oligocene. It started when a special type of tiny sea creature called Hantkenina went extinct. Scientists picked a place in Italy called Massignano to mark the beginning of this time about 33.9 million years ago.

The Rupelian ended when another tiny sea creature, Chiloguembelina, went extinct. This ending was marked in a place called Monte Conero, also in Italy, in 2017. During the Rupelian, many different land areas around the world had their own ways of naming this time, like the Orellan and Whitneyan in North America.