The remaining W and Z bosons decayed quickly, and the weak interaction became a short-range force in the following quark epoch.

The quark epoch ended when the universe was about 10 seconds old, when the average energy of particle interactions had fallen below the binding energy of hadrons.

It started approximately 10 seconds after the Big Bang, when the temperature of the universe had fallen sufficiently to allow the quarks from the preceding quark epoch to bind together into hadrons.

The quark epoch began approximately 10 seconds after the Big Bang, when the preceding electroweak epoch ended as the electroweak interaction separated into the weak interaction and electromagnetism.

It is believed that in the period prior to 10 seconds after the Big Bang (the quark epoch), the universe was filled with quark-gluon plasma, as the temperature was too high for hadrons to be stable.

Heavier quarks can only be created in high-energy collisions (such as in those involving cosmic rays), and decay quickly; however, they are thought to have been present during the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, when the universe was in an extremely hot and dense phase (the quark epoch).

In physical cosmology the quark epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe when the fundamental interactions of gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong interaction and the weak interaction had taken their present forms, but the temperature of the universe was still too high to allow quarks to bind together to form hadrons.