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The Mesozoic Era (248 - 65 million years ago) Ages of the Mesozoic Era | ||||||||
Triassic Period 248 - 206 mya First dinosaurs and mammals |
Jurassic Period 206-144 mya Many dinosaurs and the first birds |
Cretaceous Period 144-65 mya First flowering plants, the height of the dinosaurs. Ends in huge extinction. |
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Early - Middle 248-227 mya |
Late 227-206 mya |
Early (Lias) 206-180 mya |
Middle (Dogger) 180-154 mya |
Late (Malm) 154-144 mya |
Early (Neocomian) 144-127 mya |
Middle (Gallic) 127-89 mya |
Late (Senonian) 89-65 mya |
THE MESOZOIC ERA "THE AGE OF REPTILES" Ages of the Mesozoic Era |
The Mesozoic Era lasted about 180 million years, and is divided into three periods, the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous. Each of these periods is divided into many epochs and ages. Mesozoic means "Middle Animal" and is sometimes called the age of reptiles. The term Mesozoic was coined John Phillips in 1840.
The world's life forms were very different during the Mesozoic than either before or after. During the Mesozoic, dinosaurs dominated the Earth. After the Mesozoic, the Cenozoic or the "Age of Mammals" began. Forty percent of the known dinosaurs date from the last 15 million years of the Cretaceous period.
The Mesozoic Era 248 - 65 million years ago |
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Triassic Period 248 - 208 million years ago |
Jurassic Period 208-146 million years ago |
Cretaceous Period 146-65 million years ago |
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One supercontinent, Pangaea. | In mid-Jurassic, Pangaea began to break apart, into Laurasia and Gondwana. | Continental drift continued at a fast pace, with accompanying volcanic activity. The continents almost had their modern-day look. | |
Hot and dry, with strong seasonality. | Hot and dry, with strong seasonality at first, changing to warm and moist with no polar ice and vast flooded areas. | Temperatures were warm, seasonality was low, and global sea levels were high (no polar ice!) at the beginning of the Cretaceous. Later, sea levels dropped, seasonality increased, and there were greater extremes in temperature between the poles and the equator. | |
Small, fast dinosaurs appeared for the first time. The first tiny nocturnal mammals developed. Ichthyosaurs (marine reptiles) swam in the seas. Ferns , Glossopteris, cycads , horsetails, and early gymnosperms (conifers) abounded during the mesozoic. | More dinosaurs, including gigantic ones, roamed the earth, and pterosaurs flew. Archaeopteryx, the first primitive dinosaur-like bird developed. | Dinosaurs flourish. Flowering plants (angiosperms) spread, displacing conifers and others. The oldest-known ants, snakes, and butterflies arose towards the end of the Mesozoic Era. A major extinction occurred at the end of the Mesozoic, 65 million years ago. |
PLATE TECTONICS
In 1912, the German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener
first proposed the theory of continental drift, which states that parts of the Earth's crust slowly drift atop a liquid core.
Wegener hypothesized that there was an original, gigantic supercontinent 200 million years ago, which he named Pangaea, meaning "All-earth".
Pangaea started to break up into 2 smaller supercontinents, called Laurasia and Gondwanaland, during the Jurassic period. By the end of the Cretaceous period, the continents were separating into land masses that look like our modern-day continents.
The fossil record supports and gives credence to the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics.
The Mesozoic Era (248 - 65 million years ago) Ages of the Mesozoic Era | ||||||||
Triassic Period 248 - 206 mya First dinosaurs and mammals |
Jurassic Period 206-144 mya Many dinosaurs and the first birds |
Cretaceous Period 144-65 mya First flowering plants, the height of the dinosaurs. Ends in huge extinction. |
||||||
Early - Middle 248-227 mya |
Late 227-206 mya |
Early (Lias) 206-180 mya |
Middle (Dogger) 180-154 mya |
Late (Malm) 154-144 mya |
Early (Neocomian) 144-127 mya |
Middle (Gallic) 127-89 mya |
Late (Senonian) 89-65 mya |
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