Dinosaurs: Their Lives, Their Deaths and Their Evolution!
by Dr. Bob Gardner
Department of Mathematics
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Institute of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
East Tennessee State University
The Cretaceous Period
The Cretaceous Period lasted from 144 to 66 million years ago. Continental
separation continued during the Cretaceous.
Gondwana broke up with Africa moving away from South America, and with North America
splitting away from Europe.
India separated from
Antarctica and had reached the equator. India would continue north and
smash into Asia 40 to 50 million years ago, driving up the Himalaya Mountains.
In the early Cretaceous, a progressive drying appears to have occurred.
The equatorial regions were less heavily forested and may have developed
into treeless savannahs with the ground covered by ferns and horsetails.
The higher latitudes had forests of conifers, cycads, and ginkgos.
In the Late Cretaceous the first flowering plants (the scientific name of
which are angiosperms) appeared. Surprisingly, there were no grasses
at any time of the dinosaurs. The ecological niches of grasses were filled
by ferns which would have carpeted much of the moist areas of the Mesozoic.
This is a typical Cretaceous scene of a forested area. We see broadleafed
trees, a swamp cypress, moss, horsetails, ferns,
and flowering plants. Some of the last dinosaurs lived
in an environment like this.
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