Day 5

DAY 5 - Cenozoic[Paleocene & Eocene] (66-34 Ma) 

20 And God saith, `Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.'21 And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind, and God seeth that [it is] good.22 And God blesseth them, saying, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and the fowl let multiply in the earth:'23 and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day fifth. (Genesis 1:20-23 YLT)

Premise: Genesis 1:1-2:4 records a divinely-revealed history of the Earth describing some of God's miraculous interventions by which He transformed an uninhabitable and uninhabited world into a habitat in which human beings could thrive. God creates each human being as His image bearers and uniquely endows them with an eternal, morally-obligated spirit.

Chronology

The ICS formally defines the Paleogene as spanning 66-23 Ma, but I terminate Day 5 at the significant E-O boundary.

66-34 Ma: current best fit for what could be called the Paleocene Yom (Day 5). 

Critical Transformations: Origin and radiation of modern bird species, radiation and marine dominance of teleost fish species, origin of whales, origin of bats.

Termination: E-O Extinction event and transition from warm-house/hot-house global climate to cool-house/cold-house global climate. 

66 Million Years Ago to 33 Million Years Ago

By 66 million years ago, the rotation of the Earth had finally slowed from an initial rate of about 6 hours per day, to just 24 hours per day, and the earth finally had a somewhat seasonal climate as the continents and oceans took on roughly the size and location of today's world. With the sun, moon, and stars in place overseeing days and seasons, it was time for God to start the next Day's work. 

As a Christian, I see the K-Pg impact event as the "evening and morning" of the Fourth Day of creation. The words in Hebrew, ereb wayhi boqer, figuratively mean "night" and "of bright joy after a night of distress".  This could be seen as a "reaping" event in which God culls a diverse ecosystem in preparation for the next Day of Creation.

Psalm 104

29 

When you hide your face,

    they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

    they die and return to the dust.

30 

When you send your Spirit,

    they are created,

    and you renew the face of the ground.

So following the K-Pg extinction event, He immediately took the very few least-dinosaur-like birds that survived and created thousands of new varieties in just a couple million years https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2017/07/11/explosive-radiation-of-bird-species-after-dinosaur-demise.html. 

There was also a complete overturn of biodiversity in the world's oceans, with swarming teleost fish overtaking the dominance of the marine ecosystems http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8537.full. 

God also embarked on a program to create the great sea monsters, aka whales. 

By 33 million years ago, the joyful, terraforming work of the Fifth Day was complete.

See also, 66-million-year-old deathbed linked to dinosaur killing meteor