When did the Isthmus of Panama form between North and South America?

Other than supercontinent formations, North and South America had been unconnected up till a number of million years in the past; then a tiny slat of land linked the continents, triggering impacts that affected your complete planet. This small stretch of land, generally known as the Isthmus of Panama, reworked world local weather and launched an enormous pure experiment in migration for vegetation and animals.

However precisely what number of million years in the past did the Americas hyperlink up? The “customary mannequin” dates it to about 3 million years in the past, whereas some more moderen research say 6 million to fifteen million years, with “an preliminary land bridge” as early as 23 million years in the past, in line with a 2016 report within the journal Science Advances (opens in new tab).