The Cretaceous Period (146-65 Million Years Ago)

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In the early Cretaceous, many of the southern continents were still joined together as part of the southern landmass called Gondwana. Northern continents formed the great landmass Laurasia. These two supercontinents shared many plants and animals dating from an earlier time when they were joined as one enormous landmass.

Australia's Cretaceous facts

Position

• Australia was joined to Antarctica, New Zealand and South America, forming the last remnant of the great southern landmass called Gondwana. About 80 million years ago New Zealand drifted away from the rest of Gondwana.
• The Australian part of Gondwana was located close to the South Pole. Southern Australia lay within the Antarctic Circle.

Climate

• Australia had a cool, wet climate.For several weeks each year, parts of Australia may have had an icy polar winter including semi-darkness.

Setting

• A shallow inland sea called the Eromanga Sea covered nearly one-third of Australia.

Vegetation

• Towering conifer forests covered much of Australia. Smaller plants such as ferns, gingkoes, cycads, clubmosses and horsetails created an understorey. The first flowering plants had begun to bloom.

Animals

• Giant reptiles - the dinosaurs - ruled the land. Flying reptiles shared the skies with early forms of birds. Giant marine reptiles inhabited the seas. Australia's first mammals, including relatives of the Platypus, had appeared.
  • Kronosaurus queenslandicus
  • Minmi paravertebra
  • Muttaburrasaurus langdoni
  • Mythunga camara
  • Platypterygius australis
  • Psittacosaurus sinensis
  • Shunosaurus lii
  • Sinosauropteryx prima
  • Steropodon galmani
  • Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus
  • Velociraptor mongoliensis
  • Yangchuanosaurus shangyouensis

What was happening in the rest of the world

• Flowering plants were spreading throughout the world.
• Some dinosaurs including meat-eating tyrannosaurs were becoming dominant while others such as plant-eating, plated dinosaurs like stegosaurs were declining.
• Early forms of birds and mammals lived in most continents

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Also in this section

• What is the geological time scale?
• The Pliocene Epoch (5-2.6 million years ago)
• The Holocene Epoch (10,000 years ago to the present)
• The Jurassic Period (201 - 145 million years ago)
• The Eocene Epoch (56-33.9 million years ago)
• The early Miocene Epoch (23.3-16.3 million years ago)
• The Triassic Period (252 - 201 million years ago)
• Wave Rock
• The Pleistocene Epoch (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago)
• The late Miocene Epoch (10.4-5 million years ago)
• The Mesozoic Era (252 - 66 million years ago)

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The Australian Museum respects and acknowledges the Gadigal people as the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways on which the Museum stands.

Image credit: gadigal yilimung (shield) made by Uncle Charles Chicka Madden

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