Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos

Cretaceous Period: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last updated

News •

Marine fossils in Colombia reveal possible evolutionary transition without mass extinction • Oct. 30, 2026, 10:00 AM ET (Phys.org)
Raleigh’s got a new 75-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton. Could it be a new species? • Oct. 27, 2026, 3:00 AM ET (The Raleigh News & Observer)
Among fossil fish in outback Queensland, a former curator spotted a slender bone from a Cretaceous bird unknown to science • Oct. 23, 2026, 9:44 AM ET (Earth.com)

Photos and Videos

Cretaceous paleogeography
A detailed geologic time scale chart displaying Earth's history from the Hadean Eon over 4.5 billion years ago to the present, organized by eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages with color-coded columns and corresponding dates in millions of years.
Image shows a reconstruction of squidlike creatures swimming.
skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex
Image shows a Triceratops skeleton.
Image shows a Pteranodon skeleton.
Hesperornis
Map of the northern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico highlighting the location and circular outline of the Chicxulub crater, which is about 180 kilometers in diameter and partly extends into the Gulf of Mexico. The map also shows nearby cities such as Merida, Cancun, Campeche, and Playa del Carmen, as well as international borders with Belize and Guatemala. An inset globe marks the region's location in the Americas.
Chicxulub crater
computer-generated image of the Chicxulub crater
Illustration showing a massive asteroid above a city map with a dinosaur silhouette for scale, highlighting the asteroid's size compared to major urban areas.
The video thumbnail image shows an illustration of the bird dinosaur Longipteryx alongside two toy dinosaur figurines.
Silhouette of a bird with outstretched wings holding a Hello, my name is ? badge, next to a set of four large, weathered bones on a dark background.
See All Videos and Images →

Related Topics and References

Topics
Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

Key People

Mantell, detail of an engraving
Gideon Algernon Mantell
British paleontologist