Furthermore, the high summer temperatures seem to have prevented the development of extensive polar ice sheets. The predominantly convective rainfall was focused over the oceans, leaving many continental regions as major deserts. The high global temperatures forced more atmospheric humidity thereby enhancing the hydrological cycle.
Warm summers with generally months-long daylight prevailed, whereas months-long darkness usually prevailed in cold snowy winters. The Earth was at least 6 ☌ warmer than the present day, allowing coral reefs to grow 10° further north and south than today.
In general, in contrast to their present-day distribution, dense forests extended further poleward on both sides of the equator. Rock records and simulations illustrate that the Mesozoic Earth was an alien world. Extensive literature is available on various aspects of the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinctions and the associated Triassic and Cretaceous periods. The Mesozoic Era incorporates some of the most famous tectonic events, paleoclimatic and sea-level fluctuations and some of the most amazing ecological and evolutionary steps in the Phanerozoic bio-diversity history of the Earth.įor the reasons mentioned above and the fact that it saw the evolution of the dinosaurs, the first mammals, early birds and the flowering plants, the Mesozoic has remained the subject of discussions among the geoscience communities. It brackets the time interval sandwiched between two extreme events of biodiversity crisis i.e., the end Permian mass extinction (around 252 Ma) marking the base of the Triassic period (start of the Mesozoic era) and the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction (around 66 Ma) marking the end of the Cretaceous period (end of Mesozoic). The Mesozoic Era (252–66 Ma) spread over an interesting time that witnessed splitting of the Pangaea supercontinent and the opening and spreading of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Shahid Iqbal, in Encyclopedia of Geology (Second Edition), 2021 Introduction
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