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 Jurassic Period
The Jurassic Period lasted from 208 to 144 million years ago.
The continents were clumped together in a northern land mass consisting of
North America and Eurasia, and a southern land mass called Gondwana.
These masses also started to break up by the late Jurassic.
As a result of the breakup of the large landmass, the climate of the
Jurassic was cooler and wetter than during the Triassic. This resulted in
lush tropical conditions over much of the world.
A typical Jurassic scene may have looked something like this. Dense conifer
forests covered much of the land.
Here we see tree ferns, conifers, horsetails, ferns, and cycads.
These Jurassic forests were the environment in which the dinosaurs thrived!
