Cretaceous Cretaceous The Cretaceous (, ) is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Paleogene Period mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, and the longest period of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation "Kreide" (chalk, "creta" in Latin). The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles,
Eldon George as a sparrow or robin. In 1986, a scientific team that included Paul Olsen, discovered hundreds of thousands of fossils at Wasson Bluff, one of the biggest troves ever found. Fossil discoveries on the Fundy shoreline are especially significant because they date from 200 million years ago, the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic geological periods, when about half of the Earth's living creatures suddenly became extinct giving rise to dinosaurs and the mammals that eventually succeeded them. Many of the fossils that date from that time remain hidden, buried under North American forests, farmland or cities. But, the Fundy