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Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs
were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago
that killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known
is a much greater catastrophe that took place at the end
of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90
percent of life was destroyed, both on land and in the sea.
The Earth became a cold, airless place, with only one or
two species eking out a poor existence.
This book documents not only what happened
during this gigantic mass extinction but also the recent
rekindling of the idea of catastrophism. Scientists have
at last come to accept that the world has been subject to
huge cataclysms in the past. For the end-Permian event the
killing models are controversial -- was the agent the impact
of a huge meteorite or comet, or prolonged volcanic eruption
in Siberia?
This is an insider's account, from the geologists'
field camps in Greenland and Russia to the laboratory bench,
of how a panoply of scientists are pursuing a major interdisciplinary
goal. Their working methods are vividly described and explained,
and the current disputes are revealed. As Michael Benton
shows, the implications for today's biodiversity crisis
of understanding crises millions of years ago are relevant
for us all.
Michael Benton is Professor of Vertebrate
Palaeontology and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences
at the University of Bristol. He has written over 150 scientific
articles, and over 40 books, many of them standard reference
works and textbooks, as well as popular books about dinosaurs
and the history of life. His most recent publications include
Basic Palaeontology (with David Harper); he was also
editor of The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia,
the first account in the West of some of the extraordinary
fossils found in these regions.
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