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The map of North America with the Western Interior Seaway during the Campanian. The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, or the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea that split the continent of North America into two landmasses for 34 million years.
Sea level during Oceanic Anoxic Event II at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary was at its highest of the Cretaceous due to high global temperatures. At that time, the Western Interior Seaway stretched from the Boreal Sea (present Arctic Sea) to the Tethys Sea (present Gulf of Mexico), making it 6000 km long and 2000 km wide.
In sharp contrast, the period between 14,300 and 11,100 years ago, which includes the Younger Dryas interval, was an interval of reduced sea level rise at about 6.0–9.9 mm/yr. Meltwater pulse 1C was centered at 8,000 years ago and produced a rise of 6.5 m in less than 140 years, such that sea levels 5000 years ago were around 3m lower than ...
Marine reptiles included ichthyosaurs in the early and mid-Cretaceous (becoming extinct during the late Cretaceous Cenomanian-Turonian anoxic event), plesiosaurs throughout the entire period, and mosasaurs appearing in the Late Cretaceous. Sea turtles in the form of Cheloniidae and Panchelonioidea lived during the period and survived the ...
Sea levels reached their highest level in all of geologic history during the Cretaceous, although they declined before the period ended. [77] Scleractinian corals were more diverse during the Cretaceous than they are today. Back then coral reefs formed along the Gulf coast. [78] Rudist bivalves also constructed reefs in the Gulf coast region. [79]
The Cenomanian-Turonian interval represents one of the hottest intervals of the entire Phanerozoic eon, [28] and it boasted the highest carbon dioxide concentrations of the Cretaceous period. [29] Even before OAE2, during the late Cenomanian, tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were very warm, about 27-29 °C. [30] The onset of OAE2 was ...
The Western Interior Seaway, illustrated at 95 million years ago, was a result of transgression onto the North American continent during the mid-Cretaceous period. Sediment deposited by this seaway is represented in the rock record by the Zuñi sequence.
The Cretaceous Period (145–66 Ma), overall, had a relatively warm climate which resulted in high eustatic sea levels and created numerous shallow inland seas. In the Late Cretaceous, the climate was much warmer than present; however, throughout most of the period, a cooling trend is apparent.