Mesozoic the Phanerozoic Eon, preceded by the Paleozoic ("ancient life") and succeeded by the Cenozoic ("new life"). The era is subdivided into three major periods: the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, which are further subdivided into a number of epochs and stages. The era began in the wake of the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest well-documented mass extinction in Earth's history, and ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, another mass extinction whose victims included the non-avian dinosaurs. The Mesozoic was a time of significant tectonic, climate and evolutionary activity. The era witnessed the gradual rifting of the supercontinent Pangaea into separate landmasses
South German Jurassic South German Jurassic The term South German Jurassic () in earth history is used to refer to a lithostratigraphic rock unit at the hierarchical level of a super group. The rocks of the South German Jurassic were mainly deposited during the Jurassic period about 199 to 146 million years ago. The boundaries of the South German Jurassic and those of the chronostratigraphic or international Jurassic are not, however, exactly coincident. The depositions began rather later than the date of the international Triassic/Jurassic boundary and end as a result of erosion of the uppermost strata at various times during the Upper