An Online (Distance Education) Course offered by the University of British Columbia
EOSC 116

Mesozoic Earth: Time of the Dinosaurs 

One of the topic modules below is linked to a sample lesson.  Students who register for this course can see all the lessons.


Module A.  Earth and Time, The Basics 

Lesson 1: Key Concepts
Lesson 2: Geological Time
Lesson 3: The Drifting Continents
Lesson 4: Plate Tectonics 101
Lesson 5: Finding and Understanding Fossils
Strata in the Grand Canyon

Module B.  Key Events Preceding Life in the Mesozoic 

Lesson 4: Early Life
Lesson 5: The Cambrian Explosion and Moving Onto Land
Lesson 6: Extinctions and the Permian Crisis		Trilobite

Module C.  Mesozoic Earth, Life's Cradle

Lesson 7: Mesozoic Tectonics
Lesson 8: Mesozoic Oceans
Lesson 9: Mesozoic Climate
Seismicity and mountains

Module D. Mesozoic Life

Lesson 12: The Rise of the Mesozoic Biosphere
Lesson 13: Life in the Mesozoic Oceans
Lesson 14: Plants - The Mesozoic Garden
Lesson 15: Decoding Dinosaurs
Lesson 16: Life in the Mesozoic Skies
Lesson 17: Mesozoic Life in Western Canada
Lesson 18: The Collapse of the Mesozoic Biosphere
Trex fossil



See samples of other Distance Ed courses offered by the UBC Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science Dept.
See learning goals and textbook info for this course.
Photo credits:
1) The Great Angular Unconformity at the Grand Canyon.  Horizontal strata at the top of the photograph sit on top of tilted strata. Photo from the U.S. Geological Survey.
2) Early Cambrian Trilobite, Olenellus fowleri  fossil found in the Pioche Shale Formation, Nevada, size 30 mm. The genus is restricted to the early Cambrian (540-520 million years ago). Image courtesy of the Virtual Fossil Museum. 
3) Seismicity and Mountain Belts.  Epicenters of earthquakes (red dots) overlain over a relief map of North and South America.
4) Saurishchia "lizard-hipped" Dinosaurs.  Tyrannosaurus.  Figures from Wikipedia.
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