Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
Download or read book Extinction Events written by Liz Breazeale and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of short stories, Liz Breazeale explores the connections between humans and the natural world by examining the processes and history of our planet. A myriad of extinction events large and small have ruptured the history of the earth, and so it is with the women of this book, who struggle to define themselves amid their own personal cataclysms and those igniting the world around them. They are a mother watching the islands of the world disappear one by one, a new bride using alien abduction to get closer to her estranged parent, a daughter searching for her mother among the lost cities of the world, a sister trying and failing to protect her mythical continent–obsessed brother. Here extinction events come in all sizes and shapes: as volcanic eruptions and devastating plagues and meteor impacts, as estrangements and betrayals and losses. Dark, angry, and apocalyptic, Extinction Events is a compendium of all the ways in which life can be annihilated.
Download or read book The Great Extinctions written by Norman MacLeod and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to extinctions and their many causes and impacts.
Download or read book The Mass Extinction Debates written by William Glen and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the arguments and behavior of the scientists who have been locked in conflict over two competing theories to explain why, 65 million years ago, most life on earth—including the dinosaurs—perished.
Download or read book Mass Extinctions and Their Aftermath written by A. Hallam and published by Oxford University Press, UK. This book was released on 1997-09-11 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. -
Download or read book Primeval Extinction Event written by Dan Abnett and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When an Entelodon goes on the rampage down Oxford Street, causing untold damage and loss of life, Cutter decides a new approach to tackling the anomalies is needed. However, his investigations expose him and the team to a violent encounter with a mysterious Russian scientist and a situation more catastrophic and frightening than they've ever faced before... When Cutter, Abby and Connor disappear without a trace, Lester and Jenny must use every trick in the book to try and track them down...
Download or read book Extinction Events in Earth History written by IGCP Project 216--"Global Biological Events in Earth History." and published by Springer. This book was released on 1990 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Scatter Adapt and Remember written by Annalee Newitz and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Extinction Events in Earth History written by Erle G. Kauffman and published by Springer. This book was released on 1990-05-30 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of dynamic biological changes through the Phanerozoic which are associated with mass extinction events and similar biotic crises, and their causal mechanisms. In particular, it documents in detail the complex nature of terrestrial and extraterrestrial feedback loops that are associated with many mass extinction intervals. Authors have been asked to represent most of the known mass extinction events through time, and to comment on the complex earthbound or extraterrestrial causes (or both) for global biotic crises. The reader is offered new perspectives of extinction boundaries, a more innovative and diverse approach to causal mechanisms and mass extinction theory, blended views of paleobiologists, oceanographers, geochemists, volcanologists, and sedimentologists by an international cast of authors. No other book on extinction presents such a broad spectrum of data and theories on the subject of mass extinction.
Download or read book Extinctions written by Michael J. Benton and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Extinction written by Michael Charles Boulter and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mikhail Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar were friends for half a century, since they first crossed paths as students in 1950. Although one was a Russian and the other a Czech, they were both ardent supporters of communism and socialism. One took part in laying the groundwork for and carrying out the Prague spring; the other opened a new political era in Soviet world politics. In 1993 they decided that their conversations might be of interest to others and so they began to tape-record them. This book is the product of that "thinking out loud" process. It is an absorbing record of two friends trying to explain to one another their views on the problems and events that determined their destinies. From reminiscences of their starry-eyed university days to reflections on the use of force to "save socialism" to contemplation of the end of the cold war, here is a far more candid picture of Gorbachev than we have ever seen before.
Download or read book Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities written by Anthony Hallam and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005-07-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses the geological record to trace historical and modern views on five mass extinction events, including the disappearance of dinosaurs.
Download or read book Evolutionary Catastrophes written by V. Courtillot and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mass extinction and cataclysmic volcanic activity: will fascinate everyone interested in the history of life and death on our planet.
Download or read book Biotic Recovery from Mass Extinction Events written by M. B. Hart and published by Geological Society of London. This book was released on 1996 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engl.
Download or read book Extinction written by Douglas H. Erwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction young readers adaptation written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR). This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this young readers adaptation of the New York Times-bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Adapting from her New York Times-bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning adult nonfiction, Elizabeth Kolbert explores how humans are altering life on Earth.
Download or read book When Life Nearly Died The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time Revised edition written by Michael J. Benton and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.
