Coccolith
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Coccoliths are individual plates or scales of calcium carbonate formed by coccolithophores and cover the cell surface arranged in the form of a spherical shell, called a coccosphere.
Scanning electron micrograph of Coccolithus pelagicus, plated with coccoliths
Collapsed coccosphere of Pleurochrysis carterae
Types of coccoliths
Helicoliths of Helicosphaera carteri
Cretaceous
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The Cretaceous is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 Ma. It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ninth
Coccolith
…are composed of calcium carbonate as the mineral calcite and are the main constituent of chalk deposits such as the white cliffs of Dover (deposited in Cretaceous times), in which they were first described by Henry Clifton Sorby in 1861. There are two main types of coccoliths, heterococcoliths and holococcoliths…
The impact of a meteorite or comet is today widely accepted as the main reason for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
Drawing of fossil jaws of Mosasaurus hoffmanni, from the Maastrichtian of Dutch Limburg, by Dutch geologist Pieter Harting (1866)
Scipionyx, a theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Italy
Facsimile of a fossil of Archaefructus from the Yixian Formation, China