The Neo Cretaceous is an alternate universe where dinosaurs never went extinct, in this timeline, the asteroid crashed into the moon instead, though the Deccan Traps did take some species of dinosaur and most mammals out of the picture. In the following Paleocene, smaller dinosaurs started invading the mammals’ roles, eventually outcompeting them and driving them to extinction. With the mammals gone, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and other reptiles, continued dominating.
Climate[]
In the Neo Cretaceous, the temperature remained a little warmer than in ours, just enough so there are no ice caps at the poles. Most places that are extremely dry in our timeline receive much more rain here, and the Sahara Desert is only a fraction of the size. However, some continents, such as Australia, are even more arid than in our timeline, in fact most of the vegetation in Australia is restricted to a 120 mile wide strip near the east coast. Antarctica is covered in forests, though it is still pretty cold in winter. The world of the Neo Cretaceous appears to be headed into an Ice Age, as average global temperatures are lowering almost 20 degrees Fahrenheit each year.
Timeline[]
Cretaceous[]
- 67 Mya: Oldest fossils of springtrap centipedes.
- 64 Mya: The asteroid crashes into the moon, creating a meteor shower and leaving a 98 mile wide crater on the far side of the moon. Deccan Traps erupt, killing off some dinosaurs and most mammals. Most crocodilians, arthropods, and other reptiles are mostly unaffected.
Paleogene[]
- 58 Mya: Last of the mammals go extinct, leaving fish, diapsids, anapsids, and amphibians as the only vertebrates left.
- 46 Mya: Oldest electricaserpen fossils. Oldest cetemimids. Oldest Skullface fossils.
- 24 Mya: Late Paleogene Event occurs, wiping out the tyrannosaurs, carnosaurs, and 50% of all other life.
Neogene[]
- 13 Mya: Sudden increase in the oxygen level, evidenced by a gradual increase in the size of arthropod fossils.
- 12 Mya: Rapid diversification of the archanisopterids, oldest known fossils of the Brevicaudas, Aquapterids, and Novomeganeurids.
Quaternary[]
- 40,000 yeas ago: Oxygen Levels stop rising.
- 7,000 years ago: rise of new synapsids in polar areas, likely evolved from crocodiles.
- 1,000: the new mammals rise, due to the mass meltdown in polar areas.
Time Periods[]
Cretaceous[]
145 Mya-64 Mya
The last period of the Mesozoic, the Cretaceous saw the rise of the sprintrap centipedes, which would go on to become the apex predators of Australia. Towards the end of the period, the climate became more temperate. This downward trend in the temperature reached its peak when the Deccan Traps erupted 64 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction that wiped out most of the mammals and ceratopsians.
Paleogene[]
64 Mya-23 Mya
The first period of the novomesozoic, the Paleogene was likely very cold at the start, as the climate was still recovering from the Cretaceous Extinction. The Paleogene was the time where mammals and dinosaurs wrestled for dominance, a battle which the dinosaurs eventually won, driving the mammals to extinction. Since Australia had no dinosaurs, nor any other terrestrial reptiles, insects took over, and would retain their dominance over the continent until the present. About a million years before the the official boundary between this and the following Neogene, there was a mysterious extinction event called the Late Paleogene Extinction, which wiped out the last of the tyrannosaurs, the carnosaurs, the last remaining mammals, and 60 percent of all other life. There is no known cause of the extinction yet, but geologists believe that the Deccan Traps may have erupted again around this time.
Neogene[]
23 Mya-1.8 Mya
The early Neogene is known as “The Age of the Raptors”, because the diversity of Dromeaosaurs was at an all time high, it is theorized that this explosion was what drove the troodonts to extinction. However when the Ithsmus of Panama formed about 10 million years ago, allowing Spinosaurids and Abelisaurids to migrate to North America from the south, forcing Dromeosaurus to play second fiddle once again. A dominance shift also happened in Australia, the Great Oxygen Spike allowed insects to grow larger than ever before, pushing the amphibians back into the water and allowing arthropods the reclaim the dominance they had all the way back in the Carboniferous. Around 9 million years ago, the European Subduction Zone formed, causing the Great European Subduction, which ultimately resulted in most of the continent being submerged under the waves. In the final 3 million years of the period, there were dramatic temperature changes that triggered massive Ice Ages. These ice ages destroyed the South American Rainforests, leaving South America with the savannas and semi deserts it has today.
Quaternary[]
1.8 Mya-present
The current period, the Quaternary is known for being heavily plagued by Ice Ages, though currently we are in a warm period, there is evidence that we are about to enter another Ice Age, as average temperatures are dropping almost 37 degrees each year along with the ice caps expanding about 17 miles a year. The Quaternary is overall very similar to the Neogene, with most of the same animals and environments.
Participation[]
Feel free to help out with the project, but keep the animals realistic, (so no 50 mile high T. rex that eats stars). And also, tyrannosaurs and mammals are extinct.
Other splits from our timeline[]
- Spinosaurids and iguanadonts never went extinct, both survive until the present.
- Carnosaurs (carcharodontosaurs and abelisaurs) survive until the end of the Cretaceous, but carcharodontosaurs go extinct in the mid Paleogene, Abelisaurs survive till the present.