GoFossilHunting

Cretaceous · 145.0 – 66.0 Ma

Cretaceous fossil sites

The longest period of the Mesozoic, the Cretaceous saw the rise of flowering plants, modern bird groups, and the late dinosaur faunas including Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. The period ends with the asteroid impact and K-Pg mass extinction.

Pale chalk badlands of the Niobrara Formation eroded into low bluffs under a wide sky
Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Cretaceous is the longest period in this guide and the best represented. It ran for about 79 million years and ended with the impact that closed the Mesozoic. Sea level reached its highest point in the last 200 million years. Chalk seas covered northern Europe, and a shallow seaway split North America in two.

That flooding explains why Cretaceous fossils are so widespread. Chalk yields echinoids, belemnites, and sponges. Nearshore sands yield shark teeth in quantity, and Cretaceous shark teeth rank among the easiest vertebrate fossils to find anywhere. Flowering plants appear and spread during the period, and they changed terrestrial ecosystems permanently.

No period here is better represented, with seventy-nine entries. Thirty-eight are viewing sites and twenty-nine allow free collecting. Coverage spreads across England, Australia, Texas, and Morocco. The Kem Kem beds of southeastern Morocco supply much of the dinosaur material sold worldwide, and provenance for those specimens is often uncertain.

79 fossil sites

Updated 4 August 2026

Life of the period

Three to know from the Cretaceous

You will not find all of these yourself. They are the animals and plants that make the period worth reading about.

  • A life reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus striding forward with its jaws open.
    Late Cretaceous predatorTyrannosaurus

    Growth rings in its bones show a teenage spurt of roughly two kilograms a day. It lived closer in time to you than to Stegosaurus, which had been extinct for about 80 million years before it appeared.

    Veselin Stefanov, CC BY-SA 4.0

  • A mounted Spinosaurus skeleton in a museum hall, showing the tall spines along its back.
    Sail-backed predatorSpinosaurus

    The first good specimens were destroyed in a 1944 air raid on Munich, leaving only drawings. New material from the Kem Kem beds after 2014 showed a paddle-like tail and rebuilt the animal as a swimmer.

    Ryan Somma, CC BY 2.0

  • A pale fossil heart urchin photographed beside a centimetre scale.
    Heart urchinMicraster

    A sea urchin that burrowed in chalk. Its shape changes steadily through the succession, so geologists use it to tell one chalk bed from another. It is also common enough that you can reasonably find one.

    Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, CC0

All Cretaceous sites

Frequently asked questions

What is the easiest Cretaceous fossil to find?
Shark teeth. Enamel-covered dentine survives weathering and transport well. Creeks and beaches cutting through Cretaceous sands concentrate them. Big Brook in New Jersey and Post Oak Creek in Texas are two well known examples.
How do I recognize chalk fossils?
Chalk is soft, white, and built almost entirely from microscopic algal plates. Fossils in it often survive as flint casts, which are much harder than the surrounding rock. Echinoids and sponges preserved that way weather out whole.
Are Kem Kem dinosaur fossils reliable?
Treat them with caution. The Kem Kem beds are collected commercially and specimens pass through several hands before sale. Composite pieces are common, and locality information is often lost or invented. Buy only from dealers who document provenance.