Episode 71 – The Western Interior Seaway

During the Cretaceous, North America was flooded. The entire central part of the continent was submerged, creating an inland sea that stretched from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico and was home to a unique and fascinating underwater ecosystem. Not only that, but it split into west and east, creating two distinct "subcontinents". In this episode, we explore how this sea came to be, what lived there, and what effect it had on the terrestrial ecosystems of the time and the fossil record they left behind.

In the news: more crocodiles, the oldest fossils, a history of CO2 and unexpected fossil sex.

Time markers:
Introduction and announcements: 00:00:00
News: 00:04:35
Main discussion, part 1: 00:32:55
Main discussion, part 2: 01:11:05
User question: 01:34:55

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The intro and outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.
More music like this at http://ocremix.org.

The musical interludes are /"Professor Umlaut/" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Under Creative Commons license: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/