New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
Highlights from the Cretaceous
During the Cretaceous, seas covered parts of New Mexico, and along their shorelines lived some of the last dinosaurs. This exhibit explores the interplay of land and sea environments in Cretaceous New Mexico that preceded the final extinction of the dinosaurs.
Below are some of the features in the New Mexico's Seacoast exhibit.
Click Here to Download a floor plan of this hall (PDF)
Karen Carr painted this mural of New Mexico's bustling seacoast of the Cretaceous Period.
Juvenile and hatching Parasaurolophus.
Trace fossil found in Hidalgo County, New Mexico.
It is likely that the crest was used to produce visual signals and to create distinctive sounds.
Armored plant eaters who migrated between Asia and North America during the Late Cretaceous.
Skull of an Ankylosaur found near Farmington, New Mexico.
From the Kirtland Formation near Farmington, New Mexico.
Resident Pentaceratops, Spike, stands guard outside of the entrance to the museum.
Pentaceratops takes its name, which means "five-horned face," from the five horns--one above the nostril, two above the eyes and one on each cheek.
New Mexico's top predator along its Cretaceous seacoast.
Nearly complete skull found in the Kirtland Formation in San Juan County, New Mexico.
Trace fossil of Tyrannosaurus rex found near Raton, New Mexico.
Fossilized dinosaur dung found in northwest New Mexico.
Mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous is popularly believed to have been caused by an asteroid collision with Earth.
The age of dinosaurs comes to an end.
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