Extinctions How Life Survives Adapts And Evolves
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| Author | : Michael J. Benton |
| Publisher | : Thames & Hudson |
| Total Pages | : 354 |
| Release | : 2023-09-28 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0500778604 |
In this vast sweep of our Earths history, Michael Benton brings the deep past to life as never before. Deploying the cutting-edge tools in biology, chemistry, physics and geology that are transforming our understanding of previous environmental cataclysms including the incredible new discovery of a hitherto unknown extinction event he uncovers not only their lethal effects but also the processes that brought about such large-scale destruction. Beginning with the oldest extinction, Benton investigates the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the late Devonian, brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, which wiped out over 90 per cent of all life on Earth; and, book-ending the age of the dinosaurs, the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, erupting volcanoes and meteorite impact have affected conditions on Earth, the drastic consequences for global ecology, and how life in turn survived, adapted and evolved. This expert retelling of scientific breakthroughs allows us to link long-ago upheavals to our modern crises. As todays climate scientists and political leaders grapple to understand these processes and our planet enters the sixth great extinction, these insights from the past may hold the key to survival.
| Author | : Douglas H. Erwin |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 314 |
| Release | : 2015-03-22 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0691165653 |
Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on the subject provides a fascinating overview of the evidence for and against a whole host of hypotheses concerning this cataclysmic event that unfolded at the end of the Permian. After setting the scene, Erwin introduces the suite of possible perpetrators and the types of evidence paleontologists seek. He then unveils the actual evidence--moving from China, where much of the best evidence is found; to a look at extinction in the oceans; to the extraordinary fossil animals of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Erwin reviews the evidence for each of the hypotheses before presenting his own view of what happened. Although full recovery took tens of millions of years, this most massive of mass extinctions was a powerful creative force, setting the stage for the development of the world as we know it today. In a new preface, Douglas Erwin assesses developments in the field since the book's initial publication.
| Author | : Michael J. Benton |
| Publisher | : Thames & Hudson |
| Total Pages | : 354 |
| Release | : 2023-10-17 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0500778612 |
A journey through the great mass extinction events that have shaped our Earth. This timely and original book lays out the latest scientific understanding of mass extinction on our planet. Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail. Beginning with the oldest, Professor Michael J. Benton takes us through the “big five” die outs: the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the Late Devonian, apparently brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, also known as the Great Dying, which wiped out over 90 percent of alllife on Earth; the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event; and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, erupting volcanoes, and meteorite impact have affected conditions on Earth, and how life survived, adapted, and evolved. Benton’s expert retelling of scientific breakthroughs in paleobiology is illustrated throughout with photographs of fossils and fieldwork, and artistic reconstructions of ancient environments. In Extinctions, readers will learn about revolutionary new tools used to uncover ancient extinction events and processes in forensic detail, and how scientists are improving our understanding of the deep past. New research allows us to link long-ago upheavals to crises in our current age, the Anthropocene, with important consequences for us all.
| Author | : Annalee Newitz |
| Publisher | : Anchor |
| Total Pages | : 333 |
| Release | : 2013-05-14 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0385535929 |
In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death. Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.
| Author | : P. B. Wignall |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 219 |
| Release | : 2017-05-09 |
| Genre | : Nature |
| ISBN | : 0691176027 |
260 million years ago, life on Earth suffered wave after wave of cataclysmic extinctions, with the worst--the end-Permian extinction--wiping out nearly every species on the planet. This book delves into the mystery behind these extinctions and sheds light on the fateful role the primeval supercontinent, known as Pangea, may have played in causing these global catastrophes. Drawing on the latest discoveries as well as his own field expeditions to remote corners of the world, Paul Wignall reveals what scientists are only now beginning to understand about the most prolonged period of environmental crisis in Earth's history. He describes how a series of unprecedented extinction events swept across the planet in a span of eighty million years, rapidly killing marine and terrestrial life on a scale more devastating than the dinosaur extinctions that would come later. Wignall shows how these extinctions--some of which have only recently been discovered--all coincided with gigantic volcanic eruptions of flood basalt lavas that occurred when the world's landmasses were united into a single vast expanse. Unraveling one of the great enigmas of ancient Earth, this book also explains how the splitting apart of Pangea into the continents we know today ushered in a new age of vibrant and more resilient life on our planet.--Adapted from book jacket.
| Author | : Michael J. Benton |
| Publisher | : Thames & Hudson |
| Total Pages | : 487 |
| Release | : 2015-08-11 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0500773203 |
“The focus is the most severe mass extinction known in earth’s history. The science on which the book is based is up-to-date, thorough, and balanced. Highly recommended.” —Choice 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. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least ninety percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism: the theory that changes in the earth’s crust were brought about suddenly in the past by phenomena that cannot be observed today. Was the end-Permian event caused by the impact of a huge meteorite or comet, or by prolonged volcanic eruption in Siberia? The evidence has been accumulating, and Michael J. Benton gives his verdict at the end of the volume. The new edition brings the study of the greatest mass extinction of all time thoroughly up-to-date. In the twelve years since the book was originally published, hundreds of geologists and paleontologists have been investigating all aspects of how life could be driven to the brink of annihilation, and especially how life recovered afterwards, providing the foundations of modern ecosystems.
| Author | : Doug Macdougall |
| Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
| Total Pages | : 283 |
| Release | : 2013-02-15 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0520954947 |
In this engrossing and accessible book, Doug Macdougall explores the causes and effects of ice ages that have gripped our planet throughout its history, from the earliest known glaciation—nearly three billion years ago—to the present. Following the development of scientific ideas about these dramatic events, Macdougall traces the lives of many of the brilliant and intriguing characters who have contributed to the evolving understanding of how ice ages come about. As it explains how the great Pleistocene Ice Age has shaped the earth's landscape and influenced the course of human evolution, Frozen Earth also provides a fascinating look at how science is done, how the excitement of discovery drives scientists to explore and investigate, and how timing and chance play a part in the acceptance of new scientific ideas. Macdougall describes the awesome power of cataclysmic floods that marked the melting of the glaciers of the Pleistocene Ice Age. He probes the chilling evidence for "Snowball Earth," an episode far back in the earth's past that may have seen our planet encased in ice from pole to pole. He discusses the accumulating evidence from deep-sea sediment cores, as well as ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic, that suggests fast-changing ice age climates may have directly impacted the evolution of our species and the course of human migration and civilization. Frozen Earth also chronicles how the concept of the ice age has gripped the imagination of scientists for almost two centuries. It offers an absorbing consideration of how current studies of Pleistocene climate may help us understand earth's future climate changes, including the question of when the next glacial interval will occur.
| Author | : Michael J. Benton |
| Publisher | : Thames & Hudson |
| Total Pages | : 310 |
| Release | : 2021-11-23 |
| Genre | : Nature |
| ISBN | : 050077708X |
The world’s leading paleontologist takes us on a visual tour of the latest dinosaur science, illustrated with accurate and stunning paleoart. Dinosaurs are not what you thought they were—or at least, they didn’t look like you thought they did. The world-leading paleontologist Michael J. Benton brings us a new visual guide to the world of the dinosaurs, showing how rapid advances in technology and amazing new fossil finds have changed the way we see these extinct beasts forever. Stunning new illustrations by paleoartist Bob Nicholls display the latest and most exciting scientific discoveries in vibrant color. From Sinosauropteryx, the first dinosaur to have its color patterns identified—a ginger-and-white striped tail—by Benton’s team at the University of Bristol in 2010, to recent research on the surprising mixed feathers and scales of Kulindadromeus, this is one of the first books to include cutting-edge scientific research in paleontology. Each chapter focuses on a particular extinct species, featuring a specially commissioned illustration that brings to life the latest scientific breakthroughs, with accompanying text exploring how paleontologists have determined new details, such as the patterns on skin and the colors of feathers of animals that lived millions of years ago. This visual compendium surprises and challenges everything you thought you knew about what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived.
| Author | : A. Hallam |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press, UK |
| Total Pages | : 334 |
| Release | : 1997-09-11 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : 0191588393 |
The first book to review all the evidence concerning both the dinosaur extinctions and all the other major extinctions - of plant, animal, terrestrial, and marine life - in the history of life. All the extinction mechanisms are critically assessed, including meteorite impact, anoxia, and volcanism. - ;Why do mass extinctions occur? The demise of the dinosaurs has been discussed exhaustively, but has never been out into the context of other extinction events. This is the first systematic review of the mass extinctions of all organisms, plant and animal, terrestrial and marine, that have occurred in the history of life. This includes the major crisis 250 million years ago which nearly wiped out all life on Earth. By examining current paleontological, geological, and sedimentological evidence of environmental changes, the cases for explanations based on climate change, marine regressions, asteroid or comet impact, anoxia, and volcanic eruptions are all critically evaluated. -
| Author | : George R. McGhee Jr. |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 345 |
| Release | : 2013-10-22 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0231536364 |
The invasion of land by ocean-dwelling plants and animals was one of the most revolutionary events in the evolution of life on Earth, yet the animal invasion almost failed—twice—because of the twin mass extinctions of the Late Devonian Epoch. Some 359 to 375 million years ago, these catastrophic events dealt our ancestors a blow that almost drove them back into the sea. If those extinctions had been just a bit more severe, spiders and insects—instead of vertebrates—might have become the ecologically dominant forms of animal life on land. This book examines the profound evolutionary consequences of the Late Devonian extinctions and the various theories proposed to explain their occurrence. Only one group of four-limbed vertebrates exists on Earth, while other tetrapod-like fishes are extinct. This gap is why the idea of "fish with feet" seems so peculiar to us, yet such animals were once a vital part of our world, and if the Devonian extinctions had not happened, members of these species, like the famous Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, might have continued to live in our rivers and lakes. Synthesizing decades of research and including a wealth of new discoveries, this accessible, comprehensive text explores the causes of the Devonian extinctions, the reasons vertebrates were so severely affected, and the potential evolution of the modern world if the extinctions had never taken place.
