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The Mesozoic Era. From the University of California at Berkeley Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) exhibit. Links to articles on Mesozoic stratigraphy, ancient life, and fossil localities.
The Cretaceous Period. UCMP exhibit. Links to articles on Cretaceous ancient life and fossil localities.
Life through Geologic Time: Cretaceous. Text about fossil-bearing sites and significant evolutionary and paleogeographic events during the Cretaceous Period. Photos of Cretaceous life.
The Cretaceous Collection at the Maastricht Natural History Museum. Photos and descriptions of Late Cretaceous fossils from chalk deposits.
Ralph E. Taggart, a professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and the Department of Geological Sciences at Michigan State University, has created several excellent web pages describing life in the Mesozoic. Some of the pages take a while to load because of the excellent graphics, but it’s well worth the wait.
A Mesozoic Bestiary. Nondinosaur reptiles, birds, and mammals of the Mesozoic Pterosaurs, mosasaurs, crocodiles, turtles, and more.
The Age of Reptiles Mural: Cretaceous. Yale Peabody Museum. Stunning reproductions of animal and plant life in the Cretaceous Period. Clickable links on the mural lead to excellent articles on life in this period.
Global Warming: Lessons from the Past? USGS study of paleogeography of the western United States, from about 98 million years ago to about 66 million years ago. Information about deposition in the area of the Interior Seaway at various stages of the Late Cretaceous.
The Chicxulub Seismic Experiment. Includes a brief history of the impact crater, answers to frequently asked questions about the impact, and more.
Bang and Splat: A supercomputer anticipates the catastrophic impact of a giant comet. Scientific American article.
Dusk of the Dinosaurs. A Scientific American review of two books, one supporting the theory that the impact of an asteroid or comet caused the terminal Cretaceous extinction; the other critical of the theory.
Color-coded plate reconstruction sequence. A wonderful series of paleogeographic maps depicting the patterns of the continents from 620 million years ago to the present.
Earth History page of the Paleomap Project. Clickable links to paleographic maps of geologic time intervals, including the Cretaceous Period and the K/T extinction (Latest Cretaceous).
Paleogeographic globes show global and North America and Europe reconstructions. For this chapter, see the globes for the Early Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous.
Global tectonic features maps display the major tectonic elements (plates, oceans, ridges, subduction zones, mountain belts). For this chapter, see the maps for the Early, Middle, Late, and Latest Cretaceous periods. Explanation of symbols.
Global Earth History. Includes a chart showing the paleogeography and evolution of life from the Cambrian through the present.
