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Although the fossil record is irregular in quality and quantity for the Early Cretaceous, it is obvious that dinosaurs continued their lengthy dominance of the land. The Late Cretaceous record is much more complete, particularly in the case of North America and Asia. It is known, for instance, that during the Late Cretaceous many dinosaur types lived in relationships not unlike the present-day terrestrial mammal communities. Although the larger dinosaurs, such as the carnivorous Tyrannosaurus and the herbivorous Iguanodon, are the best-known, many smaller forms also lived in Cretaceous times. Triceratops, a large three-horned dinosaur, inhabited western North America during the Maastrichtian Age. The titanosaurs, a group of sauropods that included Argentinosaurus and Dreadnoughtus, emerged during the second half of the period and were the largest land animals that ever lived.

Various types of small mammals that are now extinct existed during the Triassic and Jurassic, but two important groups of modern mammals evolved during the Cretaceous. Placental mammals, which include most modern mammals (e.g., rodents, cats, whales, cows, and primates), evolved during the Late Cretaceous. Although almost all were smaller than present-day rabbits, the Cretaceous placentals were poised to take over terrestrial environments as soon as the dinosaurs vanished. Another mammal group, the marsupials, evolved during the Cretaceous as well. This group includes the native species of Australia, such as kangaroos and koalas, and the North American opossum.

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In the air, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs dominated. One pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, from the latest Cretaceous of what is now Texas (U.S.), had a wingspan of about 15 metres (49 feet). Birds developed from a reptilian ancestor during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Hesperornis was a Cretaceous genus of flightless diving bird that had large feet and sharp backward-directed teeth adapted for preying on fish.

The land plants of the Early Cretaceous were similar to those of the Jurassic. They included the cycads, ginkgoes, conifers, and ferns. The flowering plants (angiosperms) appeared in the Early Cretaceous, became common by the beginning of the middle of the Cretaceous, and came to represent the major component of the landscape by the mid-to-late Cretaceous. The oldest known fossil angiosperm is Montsechia vidalii, an aquatic plant that has been dated to 130 million to 125 million years ago. The angiosperm group included figs, magnolias, poplars, willows, sycamores, and herbaceous plants. With the advent of many new plant types, insects also diversified.

Mass extinction

At or very close to the end of the Cretaceous Period, many animals that were important elements of the Mesozoic world became extinct. On land the dinosaurs perished, but plant life was less affected. Of the planktonic marine flora and fauna, only about 13 percent of the coccolithophore and planktonic foraminiferan genera survived the extinction. Ammonites and belemnites became extinct, as did such marine reptiles as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs. Among the marine benthos, the larger foraminiferans (orbitoids) died out, and the hermatypic corals were reduced to about one-fifth of their genera. Rudist bivalves disappeared, as did bivalves with a reclining life habit, such as Exogyra and Gryphaea. The stratigraphically important inoceramids also died out. Overall, approximately 80 percent of animal species disappeared, making this one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history.

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Many theories have been proposed to explain the Late Cretaceous mass extinction. Since the early 1980s, much attention has been focused on the asteroid theory formulated by American scientists Walter and Luis Alvarez. This theory states that the impact of an asteroid on Earth may have triggered the extinction event by ejecting a huge quantity of rock debris into the atmosphere, enshrouding Earth in darkness for several months or longer. With no sunlight able to penetrate this global dust cloud, photosynthesis ceased, resulting in the death of green plants and the disruption of the food chain. There is much evidence in the rock record that supports this hypothesis. A huge crater 180 km (112 miles) in diameter dating to the latest Cretaceous has been discovered buried beneath sediments of the Yucatán Peninsula near Chicxulub, Mexico. In addition, tektites (fractured sand grains characteristic of meteorite impacts) and the rare-earth element iridium, which is common only deep within Earth’s mantle and in extraterrestrial rocks, have been found in deposits associated with the extinction. There is also evidence for some spectacular side effects of this impact, including an enormous tsunami that washed up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and widespread wildfires triggered by a fireball from the impact. (For more detailed information on this hypothesis, see dinosaur: Extinction.)

The asteroid theory has met with skepticism among paleontologists, partly because the amount of iridium dispersed by the collision is more typical of that of a smaller object, such as a comet. Furthermore, terrestrial factors may have also played a role in the extinction. A huge outpouring of lava, known as the Deccan Traps, occurred in India during the latest Cretaceous. Some paleontologists believe that the carbon dioxide that accompanied these flows created a global greenhouse effect that greatly warmed the planet. Others note that tectonic plate movements caused a major rearrangement of the world’s landmasses, particularly during the latter part of the Cretaceous. The climatic changes resulting from such continental drift could have caused a gradual deterioration of habitats favourable to the dinosaurs and other animal groups that suffered extinction. It is, of course, possible that sudden catastrophic phenomena such as an asteroid or comet impact contributed to an environmental deterioration already brought about by terrestrial causes.

Economic significance of Cretaceous deposits

In the course of approximately 30 million years during the middle of the Cretaceous Period, more than 50 percent of the world’s known petroleum reserves were formed. Almost three-fourths of this mid-Cretaceous petroleum accumulated in a relatively small region around what is now the Persian Gulf. Much of the remainder accumulated in another limited region, of the Americas between the Gulf of Mexico and Venezuela. Evidently the low-latitude Tethys seaway collected along its margins large amounts of organic matter, which today are found as petroleum in the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico, the Maracaibo Basin in Venezuela, the Sirte (or Surt) Basin in Libya, and the Persian Gulf region. Other mineral deposits of commercial value occur in the circum-Pacific mountain systems and chain of island arcs. Such metals as gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, tungsten, tin, iron, and manganese were concentrated into ore deposits of various dimensions during episodes of igneous activity in the late Mesozoic.