GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE

Cretaceous

Time of this period

The cretaceous period began about 145.5 million years ago.

But the period ended with a mass extinction 65.5 million years ago.

This period was part of the Mesozoic era.

Pictures (overview)

What makes The cretaceous period unique

During this period asteroids struck Earth Which had a major effect on many animals living at that time causing the KT Extinction.

This period had the most dinosaurs on the face of the earth at one time tan any other period.

Major events

During the Cretaceous period their was a the KT Extinction that was caused by the large amounts of volcanic activity and the asteroids hitting Earth.

The Extinction is what ended the cretaceous period.

The land

Climate

In this period their has been proven that their was a lot of wild fires; so that means tat it had to be hot enough for fires to start just from the heat of the atmosphere.

Also in this period a lot of asteroids struck Earth causing fire which also made the Earths atmosphere heat up.

Animals and Plants

In the cretaceous period their were birds, reptiles at could only glide but not fly, reptiles that could fly, sparrows, etc.

Their were angiosperms, magnolias ,laurlel, sycamores and even palm trees.

First organisms living in this period

The first dominant animal in the cretaceous period was the metazoans.

And all flesh eating dinosaurs were also very dominant.

But some vegetarian dinosaurs were dominant because their were so many types of plants they could feed from.

The extinction

This period ended with the largest extinction that our planet has had.

This period lost almost all the land animals on the earth at that time and about 50% of the marine animals.