Cover image for The ends of the world : volcanic apocalypses, lethal oceans, and our quest to understand Earth's past mass extinctions
The ends of the world : volcanic apocalypses, lethal oceans, and our quest to understand Earth's past mass extinctions
First Title Value for Searching:
The ends of the world : volcanic apocalypses, lethal oceans, and our quest to understand Earth's past mass extinctions
Personal Author:
Edition:
First edition.
Physical Description:
322 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, photographs (chiefly color) ; 24 cm.
Summary:
"Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside the "scenes of the crime, " from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record--which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish--and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth's biggest whodunits" --
Publication Info:
New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2017]
Subject:
Mass extinctions
Paleoclimatology
Climatic changes
Catastrophes (Geology)
Extinction (Biology) -- History.
Extinction events
Geologic climate
Palaeoclimatology
Paleoclimate
Changes, Climatic
Changes in climate
Climate change
Climate change science
Climate changes
Climate variations
Climatic change
Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects
Climatic fluctuations
Climatic variations
Global climate changes
Global climatic changes
Animals -- Extinction
Animals -- Extirpation
Extirpation (Biology)
SAILS ISBN:
9780062364807