Paleozoic
Lasted from 299 to 251 million years ago.
When was the Permian Period?
They probably hunted early mammals. Their oldest fossils are from the mid-Triassic Period.
What are dinosaurs?
The last supercontinent, all its continents finally finished breaking up in the Cretaceous.
What was Pangaea?
That big crater that ended the Cretaceous Period is named after a town on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
What is Chicxulub?
The third Appalachian orogeny in the Carboniferous and Permian Period, which helped to form Pangaea.
What was the Alleghenian Orogeny?
The volcanism that caused the late Triassic mass extinction.
What was the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (C.A.M.P.)?
The asteroid that ended the Mesozoic Era landed in which modern-day country?
What is Mexico?
It partly covered North America with an epicontinental Sea, and connected the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in the Cretaceous Period.
What was the Cretaceous Interior Seaway (the Zuni Transgression).
The volcanism that ended the Paleozoic Era was so much worse because it erupted through layers of evaporites and this carbon-rich former plant material.
What is coal?
Three bones making a ball and socket (acetabulum) joint, leading to greatly improved mobility.
What were dinosaur hips made of?
Was an island during the Cretaceous, and was home to the Deccan Traps.
What is India?
An unusual amount of this element indicated an iron meteorite impact.
What is iridium?
The name of the volcanism that caused the Permian extinction.
What were the Siberian Traps?
Ornithicians with horns and a big frill on their heads.
What were Ceratopsians?
These are alive today, and evolved from small, feathered therapod dinosaurs.
What are birds?
Big aerodynamic droplets of melted rock that were ejected out of the impact that ended the Cretaceous.
What are tektites?
Mammal-like reptiles with 1 temporal fenestrae, 3 ear bones, and differentiated teeth.
What were synapsids?
Thin, vertical structures that supply magma to the surface. Some of these are found in South Carolina from the breakup of Pangaea.
What are dikes?
T-rex was a Saurichian dinosaur. Stegosaurus was this other kind of dinosaur.
What is Ornithischian?
In the Late Jurassic Period, this orogeny grew the Rocky Mountains for the third time (including those near Las Vegas).
What is the Nevadan Orogeny?