cretaceous
Final dinosaur era
Cretaceous describes something chalky or containing chalk—from the calcium carbonate deposits that form white cliffs and soft rock.
The word appears primarily in geological and scientific writing: cretaceous soil formations, cretaceous deposits along the coastline. (Capitalized Cretaceous is the geological period.)
chalky
Carbonate sedimentary rock
- calciteCrystalline calcium carbonate
- chalkSoft sedimentary writing stone
- chalkyPale and dusty-textured
- depositsMaterial settled or stored
formations · bedrock · sedimentary · carbonate · marl
limestone
Carbonate sedimentary rock
- calciteCrystalline calcium carbonate
- chalkSoft sedimentary writing stone
- chalkyPale and dusty-textured
deposits · formations · bedrock · sedimentary · carbonate · marl
- ancient timesancient, primeval, primitive, primordial, archaic
geological time period
cretaceousPrecambrian
Earliest geological eon
Triassic · Archean · Proterozoic · Jurassic · Cambrian
earth history phase
cretaceousPrecambrian
Earliest geological eon
Cenozoic · modern · recent · primordial · contemporary
- Late CretaceousLast dinosaur epoch
- Early CretaceousMesozoic epoch, 145-100 million ago
- Cretaceous periodFinal Mesozoic geological era