Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or belonging to the geologic time, system of rocks, and sedimentary deposits of the third and last period of the Mesozoic Era, characterized by the development of flowering plants and ending with the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life. See Table at geologic time.
- adj. Of, containing, or resembling chalk.
- n. The Cretaceous Period or its system of deposits.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Chalky. Having the qualities of chalk; like chalk; resembling chalk in appearance; of the color of chalk.
- Found in chalk; found in strata of the cretaceous group.
- n. [capitalized] In geology, the cretaceous group.
- In botany: Chalky, or having chalk-glands, as in some species of Saxifraga.
- Of a chalky color; dead-white.
Wiktionary
- n. geology The geologic period within the Mesozoic era that comprises lower and upper epochs from about 146 to 65 million years ago
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having the qualities of chalk; abounding with chalk; chalky. See chalk.
- adj. (Geol.) Of, pertaining to, or designating, the period of time following the Jurassic and preceding the Tertiary, generally given as from 144 million years b. p. to 65 million years b. p.. Also called Cre*tac"ic.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. abounding in chalk
- n. from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of modern insects and flowering plants
- adj. of or relating to or denoting the third period of the Mesozoic era
Etymologies
- From Latin crētāceus, chalky, from crēta, chalk, from Crēta (terra), Cretan (earth). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Ricardo Delgado (W/A) and Jim Campbell (C) Dawn breaks over a sprawling forest in Cretaceous North America†a dawn far colder than its peaceful, forest-dwelling herbivores are used to.”
MSP#150: Yeah, we can't believe it either... | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News
“Although an apparent explosion of dinosaur diversity occurred in the mid-Cretaceous, coinciding with the emergence of new groups e.g. neoceratopsians, ankylosaurid ankylosaurs, hadrosaurids and pachycephalosaurs, results from the first quantitative study of diversification applied to a new supertree of dinosaurs show that this apparent burst in dinosaurian diversity in the last 18 Myr of the Cretaceous is a sampling artefact.”
“This standard is one of the richest materials in 13C, because the Cretaceous is the time with abundant plant growth near all our coal is of that period.”
WSJ: House Energy report on the "mutual admiration society" « Climate Audit
“Cretaceous, which is folded and faulted and forms all the higher hills, and there is a newer series of Tertiary age, which lies nearly horizontal and rests unconformably upon the older beds.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy"
“The next long era, termed the Cretaceous, was likewise more remarkable for slow accumulation of rock under the sea than for the formation of new land.”
“Among the dozen specimens obtained were some fossil ammonites (a family of chambered shells) of genera which are found on other continents in certain formations classified as the Cretaceous system, and which occur neither above these formations nor below them.”
“The Jurassic or first part of the reptilian time shades insensibly into the second part, called the Cretaceous, which immediately follows it.”
Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky
“Kinda like the reason the book and movie wasn't titled "Cretaceous Park", it just sounds weak.”
“That date marks one of five recognised mass extinctions in history the end of the Cretaceous was another.”
“A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years 'worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Cretaceous’.
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Dinosaurs, extended
At first, this was a list for things found in Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History by David E. Fastovsky. But now it's degenerated a bit to contain anything dinosaur or fossil related.
disarticulate, body fossil, trace fossil, apatite, soft anatomy, permineralization, replacement, articulated, disarticulated, intestine’s-eye view, ichnofossil, paleoenvironment and 270 more...
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