Research Catalog

Title

T. rex and the crater of doom / Walter Alvarez.

Author

Alvarez, Walter, 1940-

Publication

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xii, 185 p. : ill. (some col.), col. map; 25 cm.

Summary

Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mt. Everest slammed into the Earth, causing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Vaporized impactor and debris from the impact site were blasted out through the atmosphere, falling back to Earth all around the globe. Terrible environmental disasters ensued, including a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions returned to normal, half the genera of plants and animals on Earth had perished. This horrific story is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific murder mystery - what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? In T. rex and the Crater of Doom, the story of the scientific detective work that went into solving the mystery is told by geologist Walter Alvarez, one of the four Berkeley scientists who discovered the first evidence for the giant impact. It is a saga of high adventure in remote parts of the world, of patient data collection, of lonely intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughs, of intense public debate, of friendships made or lost, of the exhilaration of discovery, and of delight as a fascinating story unfolded.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Alternative Title

Tyrannosaurus rex and the crater of doom

Subject

• Catastrophes (Geology)
• Chicxulub Crater
• Cryptoexplosion structures > Campeche, Bay of, Region
• Extinction (Biology)
• Extinction, Biological

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [147]-169) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Armageddon -- Ex libro lapidum historia mundi -- Gradualist versus catastrophist -- Iridium -- The search for the impact site -- The crater of doom -- The world after Chicxulub.

ISBN

0691016305 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^96049208^//r97

OCLC

36104195

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library