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117-635: The Somme ( UK : / s ɒ m / SOM , US : / s ʌ m / SUM , French: [sɔm] ) is a river in Picardy , northern France . The river is 245 km (152 mi) in length, from its source in the high ground of the former Arrouaise Forest  [ fr ] at Fonsomme near Saint-Quentin , to the Bay of the Somme , in the English Channel . It lies in

234-576: A West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into

351-555: A Berriasian–Barremian warm-dry phase, an Aptian–Santonian warm-wet phase, and a Campanian–Maastrichtian cool-dry phase. As in the Cenozoic, the 400,000 year eccentricity cycle was the dominant orbital cycle governing carbon flux between different reservoirs and influencing global climate. The location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) was roughly the same as in the present. The cooling trend of

468-559: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in

585-615: A geologic signature associated with the mass extinction that lies between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras . The Cretaceous as a separate period was first defined by Belgian geologist Jean d'Omalius d'Halloy in 1822 as the Terrain Crétacé , using strata in the Paris Basin and named for the extensive beds of chalk ( calcium carbonate deposited by the shells of marine invertebrates , principally coccoliths ), found in

702-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating

819-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of

936-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside

1053-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In

1170-674: A straight shell, flourished in the seas along with reef-building rudist clams. Inoceramids were also particularly notable among Cretaceous bivalves, and they have been used to identify major biotic turnovers such as at the Turonian-Coniacian boundary. Predatory gastropods with drilling habits were widespread. Globotruncanid foraminifera and echinoderms such as sea urchins and starfish (sea stars) thrived. Ostracods were abundant in Cretaceous marine settings; ostracod species characterised by high male sexual investment had

1287-564: A ~0.6 °C increase in temperature. The latter warming interval, occurring at the very end of the Cretaceous, was triggered by the activity of the Deccan Traps. The LKEPCI lasted into the Late Palaeocene , when it gave way to another supergreenhouse interval. The production of large quantities of magma, variously attributed to mantle plumes or to extensional tectonics , further pushed sea levels up, so that large areas of

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1404-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in

1521-632: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. Cretaceous The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate , resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas . These oceans and seas were populated with now- extinct marine reptiles , ammonites , and rudists , while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world

1638-514: Is characterized by a very gentle gradient and a steady flow. The valley is more or less steep-sided but its bottom is flat with fens and pools. These characteristics of steady flow and flooded valley bottom arise from the river's being fed by the ground water in the chalk basin in which it lies. At earlier, colder times, from the Günz to the Würm (Beestonian or Nebraskan to Devensian or Wisconsinian)

1755-564: Is found in England, northern France, the low countries , northern Germany , Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea . Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of loose sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites . Among the fossils it contains are sea urchins , belemnites , ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus . In southern Europe,

1872-795: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,

1989-543: The Canal de la Somme began in 1770 and reached completion in 1843. It is 156 km (97 mi) long, beginning at St.Simon and opening into the Bay of the Somme. From St.Simon to Froissy (near Bray sur Somme, south of Albert), the canal is alongside the river. Thence to the sea, the river is partly river and partly navigation. From Abbeville , it is diverted through the silted , former estuary , to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme , where

2106-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and

2223-658: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of

2340-599: The English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in

2457-713: The Mancos Shale of western North America. These shales are an important source rock for oil and gas , for example in the subsurface of the North Sea. In northwestern Europe, chalk deposits from the Upper Cretaceous are characteristic for the Chalk Group , which forms the white cliffs of Dover on the south coast of England and similar cliffs on the French Normandian coast. The group

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2574-711: The North American Cordillera , as the Nevadan orogeny was followed by the Sevier and Laramide orogenies . Gondwana had begun to break up during the Jurassic Period, but its fragmentation accelerated during the Cretaceous and was largely complete by the end of the period. South America , Antarctica , and Australia rifted away from Africa (though India and Madagascar remained attached to each other until around 80 million years ago); thus,

2691-644: The Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas

2808-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over

2925-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),

3042-553: The Selli Event . Early Aptian tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 27–32 °C, based on TEX 86 measurements from the equatorial Pacific. During the Aptian, Milankovitch cycles governed the occurrence of anoxic events by modulating the intensity of the hydrological cycle and terrestrial runoff. The early Aptian was also notable for its millennial scale hyperarid events in the mid-latitudes of Asia. The BAWI itself

3159-518: The Thirty Years War threatening Paris. Most famously, the Battle of the Somme , during World War I , lasted from July to November 1916 and resulted in more than a million casualties. Private A. S. Bullock in his wartime memoir recalled his first sight of it in early April 1918: "... we reached a small place called Hengest sur Somme . The train stopped and we descended. There in front of us

3276-728: The Turonian Age, based on isotopic evidence. However, this has subsequently been suggested to be the result of inconsistent isotopic proxies, with evidence of polar rainforests during this time interval at 82° S. Rafting by ice of stones into marine environments occurred during much of the Cretaceous, but evidence of deposition directly from glaciers is limited to the Early Cretaceous of the Eromanga Basin in southern Australia . Flowering plants (angiosperms) make up around 90% of living plant species today. Prior to

3393-573: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout

3510-610: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This

3627-534: The geological syncline which also forms the Solent . This gives it a fairly constant and gentle gradient where several fluvial terraces have been identified. The Somme river was known in ancient times as Samara . It presumably means 'the summery river', that is to say the 'quiet river', stemming from an adjective * sam-aro - ('summery') itself derived from the Celtic root * samo - ('summer'). The city of Amiens

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3744-483: The tuatara ) disappeared from North America and Europe after the Early Cretaceous , and were absent from North Africa and northern South America by the early Late Cretaceous . The cause of the decline of Rhynchocephalia remains unclear, but has often been suggested to be due to competition with advanced lizards and mammals. They appear to have remained diverse in high-latitude southern South America during

3861-405: The 1346 withdrawal of Edward III of England 's army, which forded the river at the Battle of Blanchetaque during the campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Crécy . Crossing the river also featured prominently in the campaign which led to the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In 1636, a Spanish army led by Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano , crossed the Somme defeating a French army during

3978-629: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,

4095-999: The Albian regularly expanded northward in tandem with expansions of subtropical high pressure belts. The Cedar Mountain Formation's Soap Wash flora indicates a mean annual temperature of between 19 and 26 °C in Utah at the Albian-Cenomanian boundary. Tropical SSTs during the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum were at least 30 °C, though one study estimated them as high as between 33 and 42 °C. An intermediate estimate of ~33-34 °C has also been given. Meanwhile, deep ocean temperatures were as much as 15 to 20 °C (27 to 36 °F) warmer than today's; one study estimated that deep ocean temperatures were between 12 and 20 °C during

4212-486: The Cenomanian between the Albian and Turonian. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs , or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series . In older literature, the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series: Neocomian (lower/early), Gallic (middle) and Senonian (upper/late). A subdivision into 12 stages , all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide. In many parts of

4329-571: The Cenozoic Era   —   the ichthyosaurs , last remaining temnospondyls ( Koolasuchus ), and nonmammalian cynodonts ( Tritylodontidae )   —   were already extinct millions of years before the event occurred. Coccolithophorids and molluscs , including ammonites , rudists , freshwater snails , and mussels , as well as organisms whose food chain included these shell builders, became extinct or suffered heavy losses. For example, ammonites are thought to have been

4446-645: The Coniacian through the Maastrichtian. During the Cretaceous, the late- Paleozoic -to-early-Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangaea completed its tectonic breakup into the present-day continents , although their positions were substantially different at the time. As the Atlantic Ocean widened, the convergent-margin mountain building ( orogenies ) that had begun during the Jurassic continued in

4563-626: The Cretaceous is sharply defined, being placed at an iridium -rich layer found worldwide that is believed to be associated with the Chicxulub impact crater , with its boundaries circumscribing parts of the Yucatán Peninsula and extending into the Gulf of Mexico . This layer has been dated at 66.043 Mya. At the end of the Cretaceous, the impact of a large body with the Earth may have been

4680-570: The Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls . Because the Alpine mountain chains did not yet exist in the Cretaceous, these deposits formed on the southern edge of the European continental shelf , at the margin of the Tethys Ocean . During the Cretaceous, the present North American continent was isolated from the other continents. In

4797-537: The Cretaceous seas. Stagnation of deep sea currents in middle Cretaceous times caused anoxic conditions in the sea water leaving the deposited organic matter undecomposed. Half of the world's petroleum reserves were laid down at this time in the anoxic conditions of what would become the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico. In many places around the world, dark anoxic shales were formed during this interval, such as

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4914-836: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication

5031-666: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;

5148-672: The Jurassic, the North Atlantic already opened, leaving a proto-ocean between Europe and North America. From north to south across the continent, the Western Interior Seaway started forming. This inland sea separated the elevated areas of Laramidia in the west and Appalachia in the east. Three dinosaur clades found in Laramidia (troodontids, therizinosaurids and oviraptorosaurs) are absent from Appalachia from

5265-415: The LKEPCI. During this period of relatively cool temperatures, the ITCZ became narrower, while the strength of both summer and winter monsoons in East Asia was directly correlated to atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Laramidia likewise had a seasonal, monsoonal climate. The Maastrichtian was a time of chaotic, highly variable climate. Two upticks in global temperatures are known to have occurred during

5382-416: The Late Cretaceous, where lizards remained rare, with their remains outnumbering terrestrial lizards 200:1. Choristoderes , a group of freshwater aquatic reptiles that first appeared during the preceding Jurassic, underwent a major evolutionary radiation in Asia during the Early Cretaceous, which represents the high point of choristoderan diversity, including long necked forms such as Hyphalosaurus and

5499-399: The Late Cretaceous-Early Palaeogene Cool Interval (LKEPCI). Tropical SSTs declined from around 35 °C in the early Campanian to around 28 °C in the Maastrichtian. Deep ocean temperatures declined to 9 to 12 °C, though the shallow temperature gradient between tropical and polar seas remained. Regional conditions in the Western Interior Seaway changed little between the MKH and

5616-486: The MKH. Mean annual temperatures at the poles during the MKH exceeded 14 °C. Such hot temperatures during the MKH resulted in a very gentle temperature gradient from the equator to the poles; the latitudinal temperature gradient during the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum was 0.54 °C per ° latitude for the Southern Hemisphere and 0.49 °C per ° latitude for the Northern Hemisphere, in contrast to present day values of 1.07 and 0.69 °C per ° latitude for

5733-412: The MKH. The poles were so warm that ectothermic reptiles were able to inhabit them. Beginning in the Santonian, near the end of the MKH, the global climate began to cool, with this cooling trend continuing across the Campanian. This period of cooling, driven by falling levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused the end of the MKH and the transition into a cooler climatic interval, known formally as

5850-404: The Maastrichtian, bucking the trend of overall cooler temperatures during the LKEPCI. Between 70 and 69 Ma and 66–65 Ma, isotopic ratios indicate elevated atmospheric CO 2 pressures with levels of 1000–1400 ppmV and mean annual temperatures in west Texas between 21 and 23 °C (70 and 73 °F). Atmospheric CO 2 and temperature relations indicate a doubling of pCO 2 was accompanied by

5967-428: The Mesozoic) ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event , a large mass extinction in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs , and large marine reptiles , died out, widely thought to have been caused by the impact of a large asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary),

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6084-621: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English

6201-655: The Somme valley was affected by particularly high floods, which were in large part due to a rise in the water table of the surrounding land. Catchment area 5,560 km (2,150 sq mi). Daily flow rates compared with mean rates for the time of year at Hangest-sur-Somme (m³/s). Catchment area 4,835 km (1,867 sq mi). 1993 . 1995 . 1997 . 1998 . 1999 . 2001 . 2003 . 2005 . Mean flow rates monthly and daily at Péronne (m³/s). Catchment area 1,294 km (500 sq mi). 1987 . 1989 . 1991 . 1992 . 1993 . 1995 . 1996 . 1997 . 1999 . 2000 . 2001 . 2002 . 2003 . 2004 . 2005 . The construction of

6318-419: The South Atlantic and Indian Oceans were newly formed. Such active rifting lifted great undersea mountain chains along the welts, raising eustatic sea levels worldwide. To the north of Africa the Tethys Sea continued to narrow. During most of the Late Cretaceous, North America would be divided in two by the Western Interior Seaway , a large interior sea, separating Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to

6435-599: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to

6552-514: The Southern and Northern hemispheres, respectively. This meant weaker global winds, which drive the ocean currents, and resulted in less upwelling and more stagnant oceans than today. This is evidenced by widespread black shale deposition and frequent anoxic events . Tropical SSTs during the late Albian most likely averaged around 30 °C. Despite this high SST, seawater was not hypersaline at this time, as this would have required significantly higher temperatures still. On land, arid zones in

6669-403: The Tethys to the Arctic Ocean and enabling biotic exchange between the two oceans. At the peak of the Cretaceous transgression , one-third of Earth's present land area was submerged. The Cretaceous is justly famous for its chalk ; indeed, more chalk formed in the Cretaceous than in any other period in the Phanerozoic . Mid-ocean ridge activity—or rather, the circulation of seawater through

6786-463: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since

6903-458: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with

7020-402: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in

7137-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to

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7254-425: The ancestors of modern-day birds also diversified. They inhabited every continent, and were even found in cold polar latitudes. Pterosaurs were common in the early and middle Cretaceous, but as the Cretaceous proceeded they declined for poorly understood reasons (once thought to be due to competition with early birds , but now it is understood avian adaptive radiation is not consistent with pterosaur decline ). By

7371-426: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with

7488-408: The continental crust were covered with shallow seas. The Tethys Sea connecting the tropical oceans east to west also helped to warm the global climate. Warm-adapted plant fossils are known from localities as far north as Alaska and Greenland , while dinosaur fossils have been found within 15 degrees of the Cretaceous south pole . It was suggested that there was Antarctic marine glaciation in

7605-514: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing

7722-463: The earliest crown group birds. Acanthomorph fish, the most diverse group of modern vertebrates, appeared in aquatic habitats around the middle of the Cretaceous. During the Early Cretaceous, flowering plants appeared and began to rapidly diversify, becoming the dominant group of plants across the Earth by the end of the Cretaceous, coincident with the decline and extinction of previously widespread gymnosperm groups. The Cretaceous (along with

7839-544: The early and mid-Cretaceous (becoming extinct during the late Cretaceous Cenomanian-Turonian anoxic event ), plesiosaurs throughout the entire period, and mosasaurs appearing in the Late Cretaceous. Sea turtles in the form of Cheloniidae and Panchelonioidea lived during the period and survived the extinction event. Panchelonioidea is today represented by a single species; the leatherback sea turtle . The Hesperornithiformes were flightless, marine diving birds that swam like grebes . Baculites , an ammonite genus with

7956-437: The east, then receded late in the period, leaving thick marine deposits sandwiched between coal beds. Bivalve palaeobiogeography also indicates that Africa was split in half by a shallow sea during the Coniacian and Santonian, connecting the Tethys with the South Atlantic by way of the central Sahara and Central Africa, which were then underwater. Yet another shallow seaway ran between what is now Norway and Greenland, connecting

8073-535: The end of the AACS, which ended around 111 Ma with the Paquier/Urbino Thermal Maximum, giving way to the Mid-Cretaceous Hothouse (MKH), which lasted from the early Albian until the early Campanian. Faster rates of seafloor spreading and entry of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are believed to have initiated this period of extreme warmth, along with high flood basalt activity. The MKH was punctuated by multiple thermal maxima of extreme warmth. The Leenhardt Thermal Event (LTE) occurred around 110 Ma, followed shortly by

8190-448: The end of the Cretaceous. The high sea level and warm climate of the Cretaceous meant large areas of the continents were covered by warm, shallow seas, providing habitat for many marine organisms. The Cretaceous was named for the extensive chalk deposits of this age in Europe, but in many parts of the world, the deposits from the Cretaceous are of marine limestone , a rock type that is formed under warm, shallow marine conditions. Due to

8307-411: The end of the period only three highly specialized families remained; Pteranodontidae , Nyctosauridae , and Azhdarchidae . The Liaoning lagerstätte ( Yixian Formation ) in China is an important site, full of preserved remains of numerous types of small dinosaurs, birds and mammals, that provides a glimpse of life in the Early Cretaceous. The coelurosaur dinosaurs found there represent types of

8424-407: The enlarged ridges—enriched the oceans in calcium ; this made the oceans more saturated, as well as increased the bioavailability of the element for calcareous nanoplankton . These widespread carbonates and other sedimentary deposits make the Cretaceous rock record especially fine. Famous formations from North America include the rich marine fossils of Kansas 's Smoky Hill Chalk Member and

8541-528: The extinction fed on insects , larvae , worms , and snails, which in turn fed on dead plant and animal matter. Scientists theorise that these organisms survived the collapse of plant-based food chains because they fed on detritus . In stream communities , few groups of animals became extinct. Stream communities rely less on food from living plants and more on detritus that washes in from land. This particular ecological niche buffered them from extinction. Similar, but more complex patterns have been found in

8658-534: The fenny valley crossing the chalk to the sea on the left. The sinuous length at the centre of the picture lies downstream from Péronne . One of the fens, the Marais de l'Île is a nature reserve in the town of St.Quentin. The traditional market gardens of Amiens , the Hortillonages are on this sort of land but drained. Once exploited for peat cutting , the fen is now used for fishing and shooting In 2001,

8775-623: The first records of the gharial-like Neochoristodera , which appear to have evolved in the regional absence of aquatic neosuchian crocodyliformes. During the Late Cretaceous the neochoristodere Champsosaurus was widely distributed across western North America. Due to the extreme climatic warmth in the Arctic, choristoderans were able to colonise it too during the Late Cretaceous. In the seas, rays , modern sharks and teleosts became common. Marine reptiles included ichthyosaurs in

8892-503: The genus Berriasella , but its use as a stratigraphic indicator has been questioned, as its first appearance does not correlate with that of C. alpina . The boundary is officially considered by the International Commission on Stratigraphy to be approximately 145 million years ago, but other estimates have been proposed based on U-Pb geochronology, ranging as young as 140 million years ago. The upper boundary of

9009-625: The group Maniraptora , which includes modern birds and their closest non-avian relatives, such as dromaeosaurs , oviraptorosaurs , therizinosaurs , troodontids along with other avialans . Fossils of these dinosaurs from the Liaoning lagerstätte are notable for the presence of hair-like feathers . Insects diversified during the Cretaceous, and the oldest known ants , termites and some lepidopterans , akin to butterflies and moths , appeared. Aphids , grasshoppers and gall wasps appeared. Rhynchocephalians (which today only includes

9126-412: The high sea level, there was extensive space for such sedimentation . Because of the relatively young age and great thickness of the system, Cretaceous rocks are evident in many areas worldwide. Chalk is a rock type characteristic for (but not restricted to) the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths , microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores , a type of algae that prospered in

9243-551: The highest rates of extinction and turnover. Thylacocephala , a class of crustaceans, went extinct in the Late Cretaceous. The first radiation of the diatoms (generally siliceous shelled, rather than calcareous ) in the oceans occurred during the Cretaceous; freshwater diatoms did not appear until the Miocene . Calcareous nannoplankton were important components of the marine microbiota and important as biostratigraphic markers and recorders of environmental change. The Cretaceous

9360-458: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or

9477-767: The last epoch of the Jurassic, the Tithonian, continued into the Berriasian, the first age of the Cretaceous. The North Atlantic seaway opened and enabled the flow of cool water from the Boreal Ocean into the Tethys. There is evidence that snowfalls were common in the higher latitudes during this age, and the tropics became wetter than during the Triassic and Jurassic. Glaciation was restricted to high- latitude mountains, though seasonal snow may have existed farther from

9594-523: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by

9711-575: The late Valanginian (~ 134 million years ago) found in Israel and Italy, initially at low abundance. Molecular clock estimates conflict with fossil estimates, suggesting the diversification of crown-group angiosperms during the Late Triassic or the Jurassic, but such estimates are difficult to reconcile with the heavily sampled pollen record and the distinctive tricolpate to tricolporoidate (triple grooved) pollen of eudicot angiosperms. Among

9828-465: The late Cretaceous, and all else that depended on them suffered, as well. Herbivorous animals, which depended on plants and plankton as their food, died out as their food sources became scarce; consequently, the top predators , such as Tyrannosaurus rex , also perished. Yet only three major groups of tetrapods disappeared completely; the nonavian dinosaurs , the plesiosaurs and the pterosaurs . The other Cretaceous groups that did not survive into

9945-462: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of

10062-574: The latest Albian. Approximately 94 Ma, the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum occurred, with this hyperthermal being the most extreme hothouse interval of the Cretaceous and being associated with a sea level highstand. Temperatures cooled down slightly over the next few million years, but then another thermal maximum, the Coniacian Thermal Maximum, happened, with this thermal event being dated to around 87 Ma. Atmospheric CO 2 levels may have varied by thousands of ppm throughout

10179-711: The l’Arboudeyesse Thermal Event (ATE) a million years later. Following these two hyperthermals was the Amadeus Thermal Maximum around 106 Ma, during the middle Albian. Then, around a million years after that, occurred the Petite Verol Thermal Event (PVTE). Afterwards, around 102.5 Ma, the Event 6 Thermal Event (EV6) took place; this event was itself followed by the Breistroffer Thermal Maximum around 101 Ma, during

10296-639: The maritime canal, once called the canal du Duc d'Angoulême enters the English Channel. The St Quentin Canal , famous for the 1918 battle , links the Somme to northern France and Belgium and southward to the Oise . The Canal du Nord also links the Somme to the Oise, at Noyon, thence to Paris. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of

10413-457: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is

10530-517: The middle Cretaceous, becoming the dominant group of land plants by the end of the period, coincident with the decline of previously dominant groups such as conifers. The oldest known fossils of grasses are from the Albian , with the family having diversified into modern groups by the end of the Cretaceous. The oldest large angiosperm trees are known from the Turonian (c. 90 Mya) of New Jersey, with

10647-463: The modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting

10764-470: The most promising candidates for fixing the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary. In particular, the first appearance Calpionella alpina , coinciding with the base of the eponymous Alpina subzone, has been proposed as the definition of the base of the Cretaceous. The working definition for the boundary has often been placed as the first appearance of the ammonite Strambergella jacobi , formerly placed in

10881-824: The oceans. Extinction was more severe among animals living in the water column than among animals living on or in the seafloor. Animals in the water column are almost entirely dependent on primary production from living phytoplankton, while animals living on or in the ocean floor feed on detritus or can switch to detritus feeding. The largest air-breathing survivors of the event, crocodilians and champsosaurs , were semiaquatic and had access to detritus. Modern crocodilians can live as scavengers and can survive for months without food and go into hibernation when conditions are unfavorable, and their young are small, grow slowly, and feed largely on invertebrates and dead organisms or fragments of organisms for their first few years. These characteristics have been linked to crocodilian survival at

10998-653: The oldest records of Angiosperm macrofossils are Montsechia from the Barremian aged Las Hoyas beds of Spain and Archaefructus from the Barremian-Aptian boundary Yixian Formation in China. Tricolpate pollen distinctive of eudicots first appears in the Late Barremian, while the earliest remains of monocots are known from the Aptian. Flowering plants underwent a rapid radiation beginning during

11115-523: The poles. After the end of the first age, however, temperatures began to increase again, with a number of thermal excursions, such as the middle Valanginian Weissert Thermal Excursion (WTX), which was caused by the Paraná-Etendeka Large Igneous Province's activity. It was followed by the middle Hauterivian Faraoni Thermal Excursion (FTX) and the early Barremian Hauptblatterton Thermal Event (HTE). The HTE marked

11232-412: The principal food of mosasaurs , a group of giant marine lizards related to snakes that became extinct at the boundary. Omnivores , insectivores , and carrion -eaters survived the extinction event, perhaps because of the increased availability of their food sources. At the end of the Cretaceous, there seem to have been no purely herbivorous or carnivorous mammals . Mammals and birds that survived

11349-547: The punctuation mark at the end of a progressive decline in biodiversity during the Maastrichtian age. The result was the extinction of three-quarters of Earth's plant and animal species. The impact created the sharp break known as the K–Pg boundary (formerly known as the K–T boundary). Earth's biodiversity required substantial time to recover from this event, despite the probable existence of an abundance of vacant ecological niches . Despite

11466-744: The rise of angiosperms, during the Jurassic and the Early Cretaceous, the higher flora was dominated by gymnosperm groups, including cycads , conifers , ginkgophytes , gnetophytes and close relatives, as well as the extinct Bennettitales . Other groups of plants included pteridosperms or "seed ferns", a collective term that refers to disparate groups of extinct seed plants with fern-like foliage, including groups such as Corystospermaceae and Caytoniales . The exact origins of angiosperms are uncertain, although molecular evidence suggests that they are not closely related to any living group of gymnosperms. The earliest widely accepted evidence of flowering plants are monosulcate (single-grooved) pollen grains from

11583-508: The river has cut down into the Cretaceous geology to a level below the modern water table . The valley bottom has now therefore, filled with water which, in turn, has filled with fen . This picture , of the source of the Somme in 1986, shows it when the water table had fallen below the surface of the chalk in which the aquifer lies. Here, the flow of water had been sufficient to keep fen from forming. This satellite photograph shows

11700-451: The severity of the K-Pg extinction event, there were significant variations in the rate of extinction between and within different clades . Species that depended on photosynthesis declined or became extinct as atmospheric particles blocked solar energy . As is the case today, photosynthesizing organisms, such as phytoplankton and land plants , formed the primary part of the food chain in

11817-461: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is

11934-422: The strong regionality of most biostratigraphic markers, and the lack of any chemostratigraphic events, such as isotope excursions (large sudden changes in ratios of isotopes ) that could be used to define or correlate a boundary. Calpionellids , an enigmatic group of planktonic protists with urn-shaped calcitic tests briefly abundant during the latest Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous, have been suggested as

12051-633: The terrestrial fauna of the late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation . Other important Cretaceous exposures occur in Europe (e.g., the Weald ) and China (the Yixian Formation ). In the area that is now India, massive lava beds called the Deccan Traps were erupted in the very late Cretaceous and early Paleocene. Palynological evidence indicates the Cretaceous climate had three broad phases:

12168-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All

12285-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with

12402-483: The trunk having a preserved diameter of 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) and an estimated height of 50 metres (160 ft). During the Cretaceous, ferns in the order Polypodiales , which make up 80% of living fern species, would also begin to diversify. On land, mammals were generally small sized, but a very relevant component of the fauna , with cimolodont multituberculates outnumbering dinosaurs in some sites. Neither true marsupials nor placentals existed until

12519-789: The ultimate end of the Tithonian-early Barremian Cool Interval (TEBCI). During this interval, precession was the dominant orbital driver of environmental changes in the Vocontian Basin. For much of the TEBCI, northern Gondwana experienced a monsoonal climate. A shallow thermocline existed in the mid-latitude Tethys. The TEBCI was followed by the Barremian-Aptian Warm Interval (BAWI). This hot climatic interval coincides with Manihiki and Ontong Java Plateau volcanism and with

12636-643: The upper Cretaceous of Western Europe . The name Cretaceous was derived from the Latin creta , meaning chalk . The twofold division of the Cretaceous was implemented by Conybeare and Phillips in 1822. Alcide d'Orbigny in 1840 divided the French Cretaceous into five étages (stages): the Neocomian , Aptian, Albian, Turonian, and Senonian, later adding the Urgonian between Neocomian and Aptian and

12753-750: The varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it

12870-628: The very end, but a variety of non-marsupial metatherians and non-placental eutherians had already begun to diversify greatly, ranging as carnivores ( Deltatheroida ), aquatic foragers ( Stagodontidae ) and herbivores ( Schowalteria , Zhelestidae ). Various "archaic" groups like eutriconodonts were common in the Early Cretaceous, but by the Late Cretaceous northern mammalian faunas were dominated by multituberculates and therians , with dryolestoids dominating South America . The apex predators were archosaurian reptiles , especially dinosaurs , which were at their most diverse stage. Avians such as

12987-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows

13104-407: The world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. From youngest to oldest, the subdivisions of the Cretaceous period are: The lower boundary of the Cretaceous is currently undefined, and the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary is currently the only system boundary to lack a defined Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP). Placing a GSSP for this boundary has been difficult because of

13221-566: Was a muddy, sluggish and somewhat narrow stream, which has given its name to one of the most awful battles in history – the Somme." The great battles that finally stopped the German advance in the Spring Offensive of 1918 were fought around the valley of the Somme in places like Villers Bretonneux , which marked the beginning of the end of the war. The tributaries listed comprise: Left tributaries: Right tributaries: The river

13338-627: Was also known as Samarobriva (Gaulish: 'bridge on the Samara'). It is attested by the early 1st century BC as the chief town of the Ambiani , an ancient Gallic tribe of the region. The modern department of Somme was named after this river. The Somme has featured prominently in several military campaigns. In 1066, the invasion fleet of William the Conqueror assembled in the Bay of the Somme, at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme . The river also featured in

13455-654: Was followed by the Aptian-Albian Cold Snap (AACS) that began about 118 Ma. A short, relatively minor ice age may have occurred during this so-called "cold snap", as evidenced by glacial dropstones in the western parts of the Tethys Ocean and the expansion of calcareous nannofossils that dwelt in cold water into lower latitudes. The AACS is associated with an arid period in the Iberian Peninsula . Temperatures increased drastically after

13572-454: Was largely ice-free, although there is some evidence of brief periods of glaciation during the cooler first half, and forests extended to the poles. Many of the dominant taxonomic groups present in modern times can be ultimately traced back to origins in the Cretaceous. During this time, new groups of mammals and birds appeared, including the earliest relatives of placentals & marsupials ( Eutheria and Metatheria respectively), and

13689-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like

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