A coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. One of the world's longest coastal plains is located in eastern South America. The southeastern coastal plain of North America is notable for its species diversity. The Gulf Coastal Plain of North America extends northwards from the Gulf of Mexico along the Lower Mississippi River to the Ohio River, which is a distance of about 500 miles (about 800 km). During the Cretaceous period, the central area of the United States was covered by a shallow sea, which disappeared as the land rose. Large fossilized aquatic birds called Hesperornis and Ichthyornis, found in western Kansas, indicate that the shallow sea was rife with fish.
Famous quotes containing the word plain:
“This mesa plain had an appearance of great antiquity, and of incompleteness; as if, with all the materials for world-making assembled, the Creator had desisted, gone away and left everything on the point of being brought together, on the eve of being arranged into mountain, plain, plateau. The country was still waiting to be made into a landscape.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)