Palaeos: Mesozoic Palaeos Late Cretaceous
Cretaceous Period The high Cretaceous

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The High Cretaceous: Late Cretaceous I

The Early Late Cretaceous Epoch: 99.6 to 83.5 Million Years Ago

 
Cretaceous  
   Neocomian Early Cretaceous I  
   Aptian-Albian (Early Cretaceous II)  
   High Cretaceous (Late Cretaceous I)  
      Cenomanian Age  
      Turonian Age  
      Coniacian Age  
      Santonian Age
   End Cretaceous  (Late Cretaceous II)   		 


late Cretaceous scene - click here for more details
an ankylosaur herbivore is menaced by
a tyrannosaurid predator
from American Museum of Natural History Timelines Exhibit

Stratigraphy

 
  Epoch Age sub-age time
MYA		 Land Mammal Age (North America) Terrestrial Vertebrate age
(Asia0		 date

A

 date

B
Late

Cretaceous

   Late Cretaceous II

"End-Cretaceous"

 Maastrichtian Late 65 Puercan 65.3
66
67		 Lancian
Early 68
69		 Nemegtian 69.7
70
71		 Edmontian 71.3
Campanian Late 72 Nem. or Barun. 72.1
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80		 Judithian Barungoyotian
Early 81 81.1
82 Aquilian "Djadochtian" ??
83 83.5
Late Cretaceous I

"High Cretaceous"

 Santonian Late 84    
Early 85 85.8
Coniacian Late 87    
Early 89 89.9
Turonian            
Cenomanian            
dating A: Land-Mammal Age table (former site), and A Quantitative North American Mammalian Time Scale (former site) by John Alroy.

dating B  "A Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time scale," by Gradstein, F.M., F.P. Agterberg, J.G. Ogg, J. Hardenbol, P. van Veen, J. Thierry and Z. Huang. 1995.in pp. 95-126 of W.A. Bergrgren, D.V. Kent, M.-P. Aubry & J. Hardenbol (eds.), Geochronology, Time Scales, and Global Stratigraphic Correlation. SEPM Special Publication No.54.)
 

Life

Plants

 In the middle Permian the gymnosperm-dominated Mesophytic flora emerges (although Mesophytic type plants go back to the Carboniferous, just as some Paleophytic plants survive even to this day), and this flourishes right up until the middle and later Cretaceous. At this time, when the dinosaurs and other Mesozoic animals are in full swing, the current, angiosperm-dominated Cenophytic flora emerges (in fact Angiosperms appear in the later Early Cretaceous, but do not become predominant until the later Cretaceous). The Cenophytic flora continues quite happily through the great K-T extinction that eliminated the dinosaurs and many other forms of animal life (including some marsupial mammal and early bird types), although some modern biome-types like grasslands only appeared very recently (during the Miocene epoch).  MAK010115. 

Links

drawingLate Cretaceous -  Dr Ron Blakey'sexternal linkGlobal Earth History

 
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page uploaded May 2002
checked ATW031114
text content by M. Alan Kazlev 2002
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