Paleocene
Earliest epoch of the Paleogene. The ‘old’ qualifies the position of an additional pre-Eocene division, not an assessment of fossil abundance.
Language and route: French Paléocène, constructed from Ancient Greek combining elements. Schimper introduced the French geological name Paléocène in 1874. The older elements are Greek palaiós, ‘old’, and kainós, ‘new, recent’; the complete compound is modern French geological terminology.
Literal gloss: old recent
The name and its history
Wilhelm Philipp Schimper · 1874 (*Paléocène*, French)
- What does the word literally mean?
- The apparently contradictory elements ‘old’ and ‘recent’ make sense in the nineteenth-century -cene vocabulary: recent refers to the existing biological world used as a reference point, while paleo- distinguishes a succession older than Lyell’s Eocene. The name does not mean that its sediments are old in comparison with the Cretaceous.
- What did the original author mean?
- Schimper's 1874 Période paléocène was a named fossil-flora interval encompassing the Bracheux sands, ancient Sézanne travertines and Soissonnais lignites and sandstones (the Suessonian of the Paris Basin). He described floras as successive, related assemblages.
- Why was the name needed?
- The earliest Tertiary plant-bearing deposits required a recognisable division because Schimper believed their vegetation was distinguishable from both continuing Cretaceous floras and Eocene floras.
- What evidence supported the original concept?
- Schimper listed the relevant French sedimentary units and fossil plants; Schorn's close reading documents his plant list (1874, pp. 680–684) and discusses how later authors misplaced the original Paleocene–Eocene boundary.
- How has geology changed the concept?
- Paleocene is now a global chronostratigraphic epoch, beginning at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. Schimper's original included part of a Paris Basin succession that later workers variously assigned differently; its original floral comparison must not be mistaken for a numerical fossil-shell test.
Further historical context
In volume III of Traité de paléontologie végétale (1874, p. 680), Schimper listed the Bracheux sands, old Sézanne travertines and Soissonnais lignites/sandstones beneath Période paléocène. The name arose in an analysis of five Tertiary fossil floras, not Lyell's percentage-of-living-molluscs method.
Howard E. Schorn's detailed historiographical study, What Is Type Paleocene?, reproduced and translated the passage. It shows that later placements of the Paleocene–Eocene boundary often omitted parts of Schimper's original Suessonian usage.
The modern Paleocene has a globally defined base and a much more precise stratigraphic meaning. The shared -cene ending records naming tradition, not shared empirical methods.
Editorial qualification
Schimper (1874) original wording is reproduced and translated in Schorn's historical analysis; the Paris Basin units and floral rationale are documented, but distinguish consultation of a scholarly transcription from personally collating all pages of the original volume.
Related names
Eocene · Oligocene · Paleogene · Cretaceous · Tertiary · Fossil · Stratigraphy · Sedimentary
Sources
- Schimper (1874), Traité de paléontologie végétale, vol. 3 (digitised collection) — Original source for Paléocène, especially p. 464; digitisation linked, original French passage needs collation
- Aubry et al. (2002), Chronostratigraphic terminology at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary — Secondary contextual analysis of Schimper’s 1874 floral criterion
- International Commission on Stratigraphy, Chart 2026/06 — Current formal ranks and boundaries; not evidence of etymological first usage
- Schorn (1969), What Is Type Paleocene?, original Schimper passage reproduced, pp. 403–404 — Detailed critical interpretation of Schimper (1874) pp. 680–684 and the shifting Paleocene–Eocene boundary
- Schimper (1874), Traité de paléontologie végétale, volume III — Digitised original book; check p. 680 and fossil plant list on pp. 682–684