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Which five epochs made up the traditional Tertiary Period?
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Tertiary Period
Gypsum cones, which resulted from the evaporation of the Mediterranean Sea during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, in the Sorbas basin, Spain.
The traditional Tertiary Period was composed of five distinct epochs. From oldest to youngest, these are:
It is important to note that the term "Tertiary" is no longer an official unit in the geologic time scale. In 2008, the International Commission on Stratigraphy officially replaced the Tertiary Period with the Paleogene Period and the Neogene Period to better reflect modern stratigraphic standards.12