Cretaceous

called Pangea, which means “All-Earth.” During the Jurassic period the continents were believed to break up into two smaller continents which were called Gondwanaland and Laurasia. The continents were breaking into land masses towards the end of the Cretaceous period that like the continents we know today. Although Wegener's theory was made alone and was more done than those before him, Wegener gave credit to a number of past authors with alike ideas: Franklin Coxworthy (between 1848 and…

millions of years ago The Middle East was in fact covered by an ocean and this is what leads to the oil formed deep within its sedimentary layers. Other regions of geological significance include the coast of South America and Africa. During the Cretaceous period when these two continents slowly pulled apart from each other, rivers poured many nutrients into the sea leading to the massive oil fields off the coast of Brazil. The article argues by the year 2015 deepwater oil extraction could…

SOME DINOSAURS WERE LIKELY TO BE WARM BLOODED Dinosaurs belong to class Reptilia and so for many years scientists thought that they were cold blooded, with slow metabolisms and dominated the planet for about 135 million years. However, birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic, with fast metabolic rates, raising the question of whether or not their extinct dinosaur relatives were also warm-blooded. Whether the extinct dinosaurs were ectothermic or endothermic or…

sandstones, mudstones, and shale’s. There are three formations comprising the mesa Verde. They are the Point Lookout sandstone, Menefee Formation, and the Cliff House sandstone. These formations reflect the changes that were occurring at the end of the cretaceous time. The Point Lookout sandstone forms the rims of the escarpment on top of the park. The sediment that make up the formations is about 400 feet thick. The upper layer of the sandstone contains…

earthquakes (Baldridge, 1989). For us to understand geological formation of the rift we must look at the history of the tectonic activity of the Rocky Mountains. Background Leading up to the origin of the Rio Grande rift started during the Cretaceous period, approximately 140 million years ago…

In the summer of my junior year in high school I was able to visit my aunt in California. I was very excited to go since I born there and this would be the first time I came back. When I got on the plane I was so full of energy I didn’t sleep for the entire 12 hour plane ride. When the plane landed, it was at around the crack of dawn. When I was waiting for the bus to take me to the nearest Greyhound station, I marveled at the sky. The clouds were a wispy grey with the sky being a multitude of…

The land and rock-based history of Mesa Verde National Park represents diversity as much as the cultural history. Mesa Verde is located in Southwestern Colorado which is one of the four states that is included in the Colorado Plateau. It became a national park in 1906 in order to preserve and protect the famous cliff dwellings and artifacts. Beginning back in 550 A.D to 1300 A.D, Ancestral Puebloans came to realize the diversity of Mesa Verde National Park and used its landscape to create and…

the Permian period. At this time Australia was still located near South Pole and slowly moving north, during this period Australia was covered by ice, regions in Australia began to wear off forming sedimentary basins on land. By the time it was Cretaceous period Australia was a low and quite flat continent which had caused the sea level to rise to a shallow depth and divide it into 3 separate land masses, by the time it was Paleogene and Neogene periods Eastern Australia had uplifted which had…

In today’s society, school curriculums are filled with a variety of topics, from the Math’s to the Sciences, English’s to the Foreign Languages. One of the many items contained in school curriculums includes evolution. Evolution is a highly controversial subject in science that typically starts many debates with differing views on the subject. Some are for the teaching of evolution in public schools while others do not agree with evolution and does not want it taught to their children on the…

that was typically six-feet long, two-feet tall, and around 45 pounds. The Velociraptor is also known as one of the most bird-like dinosaurs of its time. This dinosaur likely roamed the Earth from 86 to 70 million years ago towards the end of the Cretaceous Period. In 1924, Henry Fairfield Osborn, then President of the Museum of Natural History, coined the name “Velociraptor” because of its ability to run and run fast, as well as its carnivorous diet it took in. There are two species of…