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Our goal is to identify and document at least one good example of everything that we can find from the Cretaceous Period worldwide, and make the information available to the amateur paleontology community. The best way to see what we're about is to surf around. CretaceousFossils.com is designed to be a dinosaur age fossil identification site, but for those of you who want more than a picture with a name we also include information on the fossil's geographic distribution and stratigraphic occurrence.
We take pains to make sure the information is correct, so if you see a mistake don't hesitate to notify us. The identifications are based on several sources of information, including professional paleontologists, knowledgeable collectors, the primary literature, and over 20 years of collecting and studying fossils from this period. To help you out, the fossil pages include papers that we found useful in identifying the stuff on the site.
There is a staggering wealth of information and photographs on the paleontology of the Cretaceous Period, and with a little digging, you should be able to ID almost anything you have in your collections. Chances are good that you have stuff not on the site, so check out our Library section on topics related to Cretaceous paleontology, paleogeography, paleoecology, and geology for identifying your stuff. It may provide the reference that you've been looking for (includes >5,000 references but is admittedly not comprehensive). Photos and Information on Cretaceous Fossils Wanted! We would like to extend an invitation to private collectors who want to show off their collections. You can make an important contribution to the amateur paleontology community by providing jpegs and info on your fossils, and the success of this project depends on continued support from collectors such as yourself. Of course, full acknowledgment will be given to you, and all intellectual property that you provide will remain under your control. For example, if you decide to remove your images at any time just ask and we'll do so with no questions asked.
Arrangements have also been made with a couple of institutions to include select specimens from their vast collections. This is material that would otherwise be inaccessible to the general public, and for this we want to thank those professionals who have agreed to let us present these fossils here.
Miscellaneous Projects:
Please check out our informal section for non-Cretaceous material. We've seen some pretty incredible Paleozoic collections (and Tertiary shark tooth collections), and this section provides another outlet for these collectors. However, since these time periods constitute ~93% of biological evolution (time wise) since the last 1.2 billion years (Cretaceous, the remaining 7%), we'll have to limit the section to a few representative fossils.
We are also attempting to place these fossils in the context of the environment in which these extinct animals lived by creating thematic sections with accompanying diagrams. However, since it's a two man operation (three, with the help of Lee Duchouquette. Many thanks!), it will take some time to implement this "big picture" feature of the site. You can see the tip of the iceberg by checking out our stratigraphy and formation sections.
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