How long was the Mesozoic Era?

Question: How long was the Mesozoic Era?
- Keywords:
  mesozoic era
Asked by justinaz to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 16 Nov 2012.
- Andrew Jackson answered on 16 Nov 2012:
  
  the mesozoic era started about 250 million years ago just after a major extinction event wiped out 96% of all the marine animals and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates (land animals with a backbone). This was the largest mass death on Earth. The mesozoic ended with another mass extinction called the KT event 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs went extinct. The KT extinction opened up the opportunities for the birds and mammals to take over from the dinosaurs. The mesozoic therefore lasted about 185 million years in total.
- Naomi Elster answered on 16 Nov 2012:
  
  As Andrew said, the Mesozoic lasted about 185 million years, and can be divided into three geological times, the triassic, jurassic, and cretacious. The mesozoic is sometimes called the age of reptiles as it was the time when dinosaurs and other reptiles dominated the Earth. It is interesting that if you track the fossil record up to that time, animals appeared to be getting bigger and bigger until the end-Cretacious mass extinction, or KT event, when smaller animals took over. There are a number of theories about what caused the KT event, from a meteor and dust cloud, to climate change, to shortage of food. Either way, with the dinosaurs gone, birds and mammals would have had more food and less predators and would have been able to take over.
  
  It’s interesting that the largest animals we have still alive today – elephants, rhinos, giraffes etc – all live in Africa, which probably has the closest climate to what the dinosaurs lived in.
- Eileen Diskin answered on 18 Nov 2012:
  
  It was 185 AMAZING years long…so many cool things lived during that Era. I think that if I had to pick one time to go back to, that’s what I’d want to look at…like the dinosaurs!

Question: How long was the Mesozoic Era?

Comments