Abstract
Even though the Cenozoic has been recognized as a period of important climate change, long-term climatic changes that took place in the continental domain are still questioned. For an area, southern Germany, for which other long-term palaeoclimatic records exist, analysis of oxygen isotope composition of small mammal teeth has been carried out for localities ranging in age from the late Eocene (c.36 Ma) to the middle Miocene (c.10 Ma). Comparison of this long-term continental δ 18O record with the marine record reveals comparable trends. The major Cenozoic climatic events are thus recognized in the continental oxygen isotope record. Through comparison with other quantitative palaeoclimatic reconstructions available for the studied area, temperatures in southern Germany are broadly estimated to have fluctuated between 12 °C and 25 °C from late Eocene to early late Miocene. According to the different available chronological frameworks, either a ∼ 2 °C (considering the classical biostratigraphy) or a ∼ 6 °C (considering a revised biostratigraphy) decrease in mean air temperature is estimated for the Eocene/Oligocene boundary.
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