The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, and the North American Inland Sea) was a large inland sea that existed during the Mid-to-Late Cretaceous period, splitting the continent of North America into two landmasses, Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. The ancient sea stretched from the Gulf of Mexico and through the middle of the modern-day countries of the United States and Canada, meeting with the Arctic Ocean to the north. At its largest, it was 2,500 feet (760 m) deep, 600 miles (970 km) wide and over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long.
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Famous quotes containing the words western and/or interior:
“Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the Grand Climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)