Research Catalog

Title

Terra : our 100-million-year-old ecosystem--and the threats that now put it at risk / Michael Novacek.

Author

Novacek, Michael J.

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxiv, 451 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.

Summary

"The natural world as humans have always known it evolved close to 100 million years ago with the appearance of flowering plants and pollinating insects during the age of the dinosaurs. Its tremendous history is now in danger of profound, catastrophic disruption. In Terra, a brilliant synthesis of evolutionary biology, paleontology, and modern environmental science, Michael Novacek shows how all three can help us understand and prevent what he and others call today's "mass extinction event.""--Jacket.

Subject

• Extinction (Biology)
• Evolution (Biology)
• Nature > Effect of human beings on
• Paleontology
• Environmental degradation
• Extinction, Biological
• Paleontology

Genre/Form

Internet resource.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [357]-425) and index.

Contents

Prologue: The hyena -- pt. 1: The way of the world. A creature in the forest -- Lush life -- Ephemeral life -- Elephants, dung beetles, and ecosystems -- Evolution : life through a new lens -- pt. 2: The world becomes modern. Ancient ground -- Imperial collapse -- The dinosaurs of Middle Earth -- A flower in the forest -- The garden of delights -- Toward a new ecosystem -- Dinosaur Camelot -- pt. 3: Death and resurrection. A puzzling catastrophe -- The era after -- pt. 4: Terra Humana. Who they were -- The exterminators -- The cultivators -- Land rush -- Dark forces -- The waste of a world -- Heat wave -- Future world.

ISBN

• 9780374273255 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 0374273251 (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2007009126

OCLC

85814141

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library