The Mass-Extinction Debates PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Mass-Extinction Debates PDF full book. Access full book title The Mass-Extinction Debates by William Glen. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: William Glen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804722862
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Get Book
Book Description
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.
Author: William Glen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804722862
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Get Book
Book Description
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.
Author: William Glen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780756761462
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Get Book
Book Description
The history of life on Earth is punctuated by half a dozen puzzling mass extinctions that constitute the benchmarks of the geologic time scale. These great breaks in the continuity of the fossil record have invited a wide array of scientific speculation. The most thoroughly studied of the mass extinctions occurred 65 million years ago when most life on Earth, incl. the dinosaurs, perished. Two rival hypotheses have emerged to account for this catastrophic event: the "impactor" hypothesis sees the earth bombarded with deadly meteorites, while the competing "volcanist" hypothesis evokes gigantic volcanic eruptions. This book examines the arguments and behavior of the scientists who have been locked in conflict over the competing hypotheses.
Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 0805099794
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Get Book
Book Description
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.
Author: Norman MacLeod
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780565092788
Category : Extinction (Biology)
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Get Book
Book Description
A guide to extinctions and their many causes and impacts.
Author: Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165653
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Get Book
Book Description
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: Gerta Keller
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813725054
Category : Asteroids
Languages : en
Pages : 468
Get Book
Book Description
"Comprises articles stemming from the March 2013 international conference at London's Natural History Museum. Researchers across geological, geophysical, and biological disciplines present key results from research concerning the causes of mass extinction events"--
Author: Charles Officer
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Get Book
Book Description
In 1980 Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez announced his theory of the dinosaurs final demise: a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth and raised a cloud of dust that caused darkness for years, suppressing photosynthesis, which impeded plant growth, and eventually starved the dinosaurs. This idea exploded into common awareness with almost unprecedented speed, and was instantly embraced by the media and the public. Almost without question, it quickly became the hottest scientific "fact". Unfortunately for Alvarez, many in the scientific community did to support this theory, and in fact later research showed the impossibility of such an idea. The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy chronicles the fantastic story of how this hypothesis became so widespread, the way it became "common knowledge" - from the pages of Science to The New York Times to Parade Magazine, the controversy it caused, and the ample scientific research that proves the theory wrong. Officer and Page also present an attractive and carefully investigated alternative explanation for the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period. Through this account they show the ways that sound science should be performed and the findings transmitted.
Author: Keith Parsons
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576079236
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book
Book Description
A historical review of the most important scientific controversies that have shaped our knowledge of dinosaurs since the discovery of important fossils in the 1820s. In The Great Dinosaur Controversy: A Guide to the Debates, the major scientific disputes that have contributed to the understanding of dinosaurs come to light. Each chapter presents a major controversy then ponders the lessons learned and their impact on the scientific field. Colorful characters such as "anti-evolutionist" Robert Owen, "Darwin's bulldog," T.H. Huxley, and "dinosaur heretic" Robert Bakker, enliven the debates, which range from the origin of dinosaurs and their posture to their evolution or retrogression and whether they were warm- or cold-blooded. Two of the most recent debates concern how dinosaurs became extinct and whether or not birds are their descendents.
Author: David Sepkoski
Publisher: Science.Culture
ISBN: 022634861X
Category : Biodiversity
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Get Book
Book Description
Introduction: Why Extinction Matters -- The Meaning of Extinction: Catastrophe, Equilibrium, and Diversity -- Extinction in a Victorian Key -- Catastrophe and Modernity -- Extinction in the Shadow of the Bomb -- The Asteroid and the Dinosaur -- A Sixth Extinction? The Making of a Biodiversity Crisis -- Epilogue: Extinction in the Anthropocene.
Author: Stephen K. Donovan
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9780471945246
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Get Book
Book Description
Mass extinctions, the apparently sudden and regular disappearance of large numbers of species from the fossil record, are one of the mostly keenly contested and controversial debates in contemporary science. A great deal of research effort has gone into the topic and certain claims, notably that mass extinction eras display a periodicity of 24 million years, have caused great interest and disagreement.
