Age of Dinosaurs

The Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, which lasted from 252 to 65.8 million years ago, are together known as the Mesozoic Era, but more commonly called the Age of...

Triassic Period

The Age of Dinosaurs, the Mesozoic Era, began with the Triassic Period, 252–201 million years ago. The period began at a time when a vast number of animals, both on land and in...

Jurassic Period

The Jurassic was the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, the Age of Dinosaurs. It extended from 201 to 143 million years ago. As the Jurassic began, the supercontinent of Pangaea...

Jurassic Asia

The great continent of Asia teemed with dinosaurs during the Jurassic Period. Asia was at that time not quite as vast as it is today. The high sea levels of the time flooded some...

Jurassic Europe

Europe in the Jurassic Period was no more than a collection of islands. Much of what is now dry land was covered by shallow seas, salty lagoons, freshwater lakes and marshes. Only...

Jurassic North America

During the Jurassic Period, North America lay close to Europe. The Atlantic Ocean, which now separates the two continents, had not yet opened up and there was no land link between...

Cretaceous Period

The Cretaceous Period, the last part of the Mesozoic Era, extended from 143 to 66 million years ago. As the supercontinents of Laurasia and Gondwana continued to drift apart, each...

Cretaceous Asia

Across the world during the Cretaceous Period, there was only about half as much dry land as there is today. The oceans covered a much greater part of the Earth’s surface than...

Cretaceous Europe

Today, Europe has two main islands—Britain and Ireland. Back in Cretaceous times, Europe was almost all islands, surrounded by wide shallow seas. Only the hills and mountains of...

Cretaceous North America

By the Cretaceous Period, the continent of North America had drifted away from Europe and South America, although it was still connected to Asia. North America was divided into...

Origin of birds

For many years, the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx, fossil remains of which were discovered in the 1860s, was the only fossil link between birds and dinosaurs. A creature with...

Dinosaur extinction

For about 165 million years, the dinosaurs ruled unchallenged. During this long period, hundreds of different kinds of dinosaurs evolved. They lived and died, some leaving behind...

Why did the dinosaurs die out?

The dinosaurs, along with a large number of other species, died out quite abruptly at the close of the Cretaceous Period, 66 million years ago. Apart from sea turtles and...

Age of Dinosaurs A-Z