Climate - Extinctions

The Neogene, like the Paleogene before it, tended to cool the Earth, especially at high latitudes (during the Pleistocene, immediately after the end of the Neogene, the Earth experienced a series of glacial periods interspersed with warmer 'interglacial' periods). Geographically, the Neogene was an important period of open land bridges between various continents, with the Central American isthmus connecting North and South America, Africa in direct contact with southern Europe via the arid Mediterranean basin, and the Siberian land bridge linking eastern Eurasia and western North America. At the same time, the slow impact of the Indian subcontinent on lower Asia led to the emergence of the Himalayas.