History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life

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Excellent
Superb Science and Art
You are a GRS too!
Very impressive effort
a journey of energetic enthusiasm

Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
Eric D. Schneider , and Dorion Sagan
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226739376

Book Description

Scientists, theologians, and philosophers have all sought to answer the questions of why we are here and where we are going. Finding this natural basis of life has proved elusive, but in the eloquent and creative Into the Cool, Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan look for answers in a surprising place: the second law of thermodynamics. This second law refers to energy's inevitable tendency to change from being concentrated in one place to becoming spread out over time. In this scientific tour de force, Schneider and Sagan show how the second law is behind evolution, ecology,economics, and even life's origin.

Working from the precept that "nature abhors a gradient," Into the Cool details how complex systems emerge, enlarge, and reproduce in a world tending toward disorder. From hurricanes here to life on other worlds, from human evolution to the systems humans have created, this pervasive pull toward equilibrium governs life at its molecular base and at its peak in the elaborate structures of living complex systems. Schneider and Sagan organize their argument in a highly accessible manner, moving from descriptions of the basic physics behind energy flow to the organization of complex systems to the role of energy in life to the final section, which applies their concept of energy flow to politics, economics, and even human health.

A book that needs to be grappled with by all those who wonder at the organizing principles of existence, Into the Cool will appeal to both humanists and scientists. If Charles Darwin shook the world by showing the common ancestry of all life, so Into the Cool has a similar power to disturb—and delight—by showing the common roots in energy flow of all complex, organized, and naturally functioning systems.

“Whether one is considering the difference between heat and cold or between inflated prices and market values, Schneider and Sagan argue, we can apply insights from thermodynamics and entropy to understand how systems tend toward equilibrium. The result is an impressive work that ranges across disciplinary boundaries and draws from disparate literatures without blinking.”—Publishers Weekly

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2007-06-12

This book is excellent and should be read for those Physicochemical Professors that believe second law can not be taught without calculus. Thermodynamics is a subject demistified in this book.

Superb Science and Art.......2006-11-02

This is one of the few recent books that I am buying for friends. Schneider and (Dorion) Sagan do a marvelous job of explicating the most significant concepts behind non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Their explanation makes the subject both accessible and meaningful - an artful and rare accomplishment. And, as I am finding out, their message is enlightening for even friends with science degrees!

It has been stressed for years how the "entropy law" foretells and mandates a relentless downward spiral towards equilibrium (oblivion). Now read about the other side of the story - how the ongoing evolution of complexity gets its "sustenance" from its ability to destroy energy gradients and thus entropy becomes the essential engine and ally in the evolution of our universe and self-analytical life.

You are a GRS too!.......2006-05-24

After reading the book I added a prefix to my name, GRS - gradient reducing system. Indeed, I am a GRS with around 4 bn year history and helping nature reduce the gradient between 5800K Sun and 2.7K outer space.

If you read Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, and are wondering why the gene has got to be "selfish", then you must read this book. Its simple, when there is a gradient, nature detests it and finds a way of removing the gradient in most efficient way.

Also, this book gives insights into Ecology and how each species(including us) depends on many other species. It gives a feeling that the eastern concept of one's relationship with the whole universe, is indeed true to some extent in some sense. It also lets us understand why we need to save the rain forests at any cost, if we are indeed looking at long term survival.

Some examples for how nature tries to abolish gradient are exhilarating. After reading this book I got a feeling that Second law of thermodynamics replaces "God".

The rise of complexity in open system with energy flow, information flow is neatly explained using non-equilibrium thermodynamics(NET). Understanding the rise of life at the most fundamental level yet is so thrilling. Some mathematics would have helped but since the book is meant for a layman too, its understandable.

Very impressive effort.......2006-04-11

Works of scientific significance tend to fall into one of two categories: those that present new material, and those that reconfigure existing material into something that is new by virtue of its originality of insight. "Into the Cool" falls decisively into the second category, and Eric Schneider and Dorion Sagan have created a book that is as much concerned with philosophy of science as it is about science. The book seamlessly presents the historical and philosophical evolution of a fundamental principle (the second law of thermodynamics as applied to open systems) and develops the implications of the principle in a staggeringly wide range of contexts. In doing so, the authors have avoided the gratuitous descent into the intentionally obscure that mars so much of "popular" scientific writing, and have given us a work that is engaging, lucid and supremely approachable. Their approach risks repetition of material, and the book is not immune to that criticism. In the book's finest moments, however, the authors are able to exploit that repetition by presenting their material in a variety of contexts that collectively support the validity of their argument. In the section on economics, for example (economics in a work on thermodynamics!), the authors make a persuasive case for viewing markets as organically derived from, rather than merely analogical to, the implications of the second law. The authors' treatment of this argument requires less in the way of philosophical gymnastics than might be imagined, and their exposition makes the unfolding of the logic seem almost inevitable. Because of the richness of the material, this is a work that demands more than one reading. Fortunately, the warmth and sincerity of the writing make this book a joy, rather than the heavy going that might easily have otherwise resulted. Highly recommended.

a journey of energetic enthusiasm.......2006-04-11

if you are a reader who enjoys a book that brings together information from many different fields of science to assemble them in support of a more general idea then 'into the cool' is a book you.

ultimately this is not a book about science but a story of our micro and macro world for which the formulas and the math and the science are yet undeveloped. however, the thought experiments, analogous and philosophical, are well within the reach of a curious mind out for a scientific reward.

schneider and sagan take you on a journey of energetic enthusiasm during which, at some point, you will find yourself no longer looking in on an idea for having become the very idea yourself.

Physics of the Solar System: Dynamics and Evolution, Space Physics, and Spacetime Structure (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

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Physics of the Solar System: Dynamics and Evolution, Space Physics, and Spacetime Structure (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)
B. Bertotti , P. Farinella , and D. Vokrouhlicky
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Paperback

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The Future of the Universe (Astronomers' Universe)

ASIN: 1402015097

Book Description

This volume covers most areas in the physics of the solar system, with special emphasis on gravitational dynamics; its gist is the rational, in particular mathematical, understanding of the main processes at work. Special stress is given to the variety of objects in the planetary system and their long-term evolution. The unique character of this book is its breadth and depth, which aims at bringing the reader to the threshold of original research; however, special chapters and introductory sections are included for the benefit of the beginner.

Physics of the Solar System is based on the earlier work by B. Bertotti and P. Farinella: Physics of the Earth and the Solar System (Kluwer, 1990), which has been completely revised and updated, and more focused on the solar system. It generally attains a higher level than the previous version. This volume is generally suitable for post-graduate students and researchers in physics, especially in the field related to the solar system. A large amount of figures and diagrams is included, often compiled with real data.

The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change

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The biosphere
A very useful reference on the Earth's biosphere
A Masterful Survey
Rich with connections between ideas

The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change
Vaclav Smil
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262194724

Book Description

In his latest book, Vaclav Smil tells the story of the Earth?s biosphere from its origins to its near- and long-term future. He explains the workings of its parts and what is known about their interactions. With essay-like flair, he examines the biosphere?s physics, chemistry, biology, geology, oceanography, energy, climatology, and ecology, as well as the changes caused by human activity. He provides both the basics of the story and surprising asides illustrating critical but often neglected aspects of biospheric complexity.

Smil begins with a history of the modern idea of the biosphere, focusing on the development of the concept by Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky. He explores the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, life?s evolution and metabolism, and the biosphere?s extent, mass, productivity, and grand-scale organization. Smil offers fresh approaches to such well-known phenomena as solar radiation and plate tectonics and introduces lesser-known topics such as the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism across body sizes and metabolic pathways. He also examines two sets of fundamental relationships that have profoundly influenced the evolution of life and the persistence of the biosphere: symbiosis and the role of life?s complexity as a determinant of biomass productivity and resilience. And he voices concern about the future course of human-caused global environmental change, which could compromise the biosphere?s integrity and threaten the survival of modern civilization.

Customer Reviews:

The biosphere.......2007-01-15

A survey of biology (from cell biology to biome-scale ecology) and geography as pertaining to the earth's biosphere - where life on earth came from (as far as it can be known), how it will end, where it has spread, how life affects the natural cycles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and other elements, what are the scaling laws for animals and plants, what is the total biomass of wild mammals, domesticated bovids and humans, and so on. So far as a nonbiologist can understand it, this is very interesting stuff.

The last chapter is about the human influence on the biosphere - human-introduced invasive species (99% of the biomass of the San Francisco Bay), air and water pollution, deforestation and global warming via anthropogenic emission of fossil carbon. I didn't know that the answer to a great many questions about global warming is, "We have no idea", since there are dozens of feedback cycles, both positive and negative, around the increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and its consequences. Will plants photosynthesize more because of greater concentration of carbon dioxide? Some will, some won't. Will the warmer oceans cause the methane hydrates on the ocean floor to melt, releasing large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the athmosphere? Fortunately, we cannot destroy the biosphere; unfortunately, it is within our capabilities to alter it in such a way as to make the earth unlivable for billions of humans.

Smil's Energies is one of the best popular science books I have ever read.

A very useful reference on the Earth's biosphere.......2005-01-03

This is a very readable book about the history and nature of the Earth's biosphere, and ideas about its future.

Smil begins with some fascinating material on the the nature and origin of early life on Earth. That includes a discussion of stromatolites (early life), and some interesting comments about guesses of the odds of life appearing in a stellar system in the Galaxy. While estimates that hold the chances to be small are taken seriously, Fred Hoyle's argument that the chance is outrageously small is shown to be silly.

The author then describes the nature and diversity of life in general, and its resiliance to a variety of natural catastrophes, including bolide impacts and supernovae.

Smil tells us about how the biosphere is energized, by solar radiation and the Earth's internal heat. And we then see the flows of water and materials, including carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and other mineral cycles. The next two chapters deal with the extent of the biosphere and the biosphere's mass and productivity. There are organisms that range up to 50 km above the surface of our planet, or to the bottom of the oceans, nearly 11 km down. To tens of meters below the land surface. And at temperatures ranging from 110 degrees Celsius to minus 50. pH ranges can be from 1 to 11. Meanwhile, the biomass may be anywhere from 2200 to 4000 Gigatons of Carbon.

There is a chapter on the dynamics and organization of the biosphere, including the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism "that applies across an entire range of body sizes and metabolic pathways."

After that, Smil discusses the transformation of the biosphere due to human actions, such as the release of sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon into the atmosphere. The book concludes with some ideas about the future of the biosphere. He speculates that the Earth's population will stabilize at well below 10 billion people and that there needs to be a transition "from fossil fuels to solar radiation as the dominant source of human energy needs." Meanwhile, there are problems to face: we humans are awfully prone to violence, there may be a new ice age, we could be hit by a big bolide, and so forth. Still, the author is mentions that the biosphere might prove surprisingly resiliant to what is being done to it at present.

There are a few useful appendices, covering milestones in the evolution of the Earth and its biosphere, sizes and masses of organisms, chemical reactions in the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles, and ocean and land estimates of the biosphere's phytomass, heterotrophic biomass, and net primary productivity, There's also a list of useful websites.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.

A Masterful Survey.......2004-10-05

Vaclav Smil is a geographer, and tries to get some perspective on the life of our planet by taking the large view. This entails a sacrifice of depth to get the necessary breadth. But the task he has set himself is still to provide sufficient rigorous detail on the topics he includes (bichemistry, energetics, geology, geochemistry, etc.) to give the reader a basis for useful understanding of the complex thing that is the biosphere. It is necessary, as he asserts in his preface, to synthesize rather than specialize if we are to address the pressing questions about our living environment, which sprawls -- physically and intellectually -- over the whole world. And if you follow the references -- or just leaf through the bibliography -- you must come to realize the immense amount of learning and research that undergird this presentation.

The patron saint of this volume is the early 20th-century Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, who was the first to use the term "biosphere" (actually, "biosphera") in the grand and inclusive way that the rest of the world is now getting around to doing. He calculated (or estimated or guessed) the primary productivity of the green world, the standing biomass divided into its varous categories of land and water autotrophs and heterotrophs, the interrelationships between life, the sun's energy, the composition and behaviors of sea and air, and the grand geochemical cycles. And Vernadsky was hopeful: he expected a planet-wide consciousness to arise that would manage the biosphere intelligently.

Since then, hope has waned as our knowledge and power have grown. Humanity is stressing the systems of life as much, perhaps, as any catastophe in Earth's long history. Yet this book is a hopeful gesture: it is an attempt to get a grip on the issues in play so we can act with some effect to reverse or slow the degradation of the air, land, and waters, and to restore nature to a state of robust health -- or at least to give nature some breathing room. Smil has chosen to treat in detail the questions of the origins of life, its possible existence elsewhere, and its fundamental biochemistry. He talks about life in the mass -- as a storehouse for sunlight, and as a participant in the great cycles of material through the atmosphere, waters, within the mantle of the earth, and out again. He talks about the physical constraints on life's productivity, the dynamics and organization of the biosphere. And always he is concerned with magnitudes and their relationships: it is not enough to discuss the amount of plankton in the oceans as an isolated fact. Rather, its mass and its turnover, its powers of energy sequestration, should be compared to those of land plants, and productive and unproductive sea areas contrasted.

It is implicit in this approach that the numbers matter. We must know the size and extent of things that we wish to affect or to stop adversely affecting. After all, without some sense of the magnitude of the particular flows of material or requirements of particular facets of the living world, we can waste our efforts on what amount to side issues. However, I wish the presentation had been more user-friendly: many of the charts and graphs were lifted from technical publications, and the others had that feel. The ultimate goal of all this numerizing should be -- let's face it -- a sort of pictoral understanding. To that end, I would have liked some synthesizing graphics that showed (maybe with fat arrows and thin arrows, big, little and even teeny-tiny barrels (or trees or bugs...)) how facets of the system compared, and at a glance showed the relative "importance" of things.

I know that mere magnitude is not always a safe guide to how important something is in the workings of the world. A rather small quantity of CFC's in the stratosphere has had immense effect, for counterexample. Small amounts of bottleneck chemicals like phosphorous control the richness of life in otherwise productive areas. And how unimportant is a rare -- and biospherically useless -- species?

Anyway, I cheer this parade of fact backed by much research and aided immensely by our current generation of planet-spanning monitoring devices. This is hard science, and it gives us baselines and error ranges, without which all discussion finally devolves into opinion and political posturing. Yet, when the last graph is in place, we go right on despoiling the world. The problem is not so much a technical difficulty as it is a matter of societal will. Smil admits as much in his last chapter. All that has gone before is not even really prelude. Without the active cooperation of the political entities that partition this vast human herd the environment cannot be saved. This is the hard part. It is rather a letdown, getting to this point in the book, to realize that science is powerless in the face of a desire to ignore it.

Rich with connections between ideas.......2004-01-05

This is less a review of the book then a plea for more people to read it. Like an idiot, I loaned my new copy of this book to a friend after just reading through it once. I'll be buying another, and keeping it.

Smil connects so many ideas together here that you might find yourself thinking that the dynamics of an interconnected biosphere are obvious. I suppose that's the highest praise I can offer. Complex interactions within geology, geography, chemistry and evolution are made clear in this book. The writing is bright, interesting and yet dense with information. This is large scale popular science writing at its best.

Perilous Planet Earth: Catastrophes and Catastrophism through the Ages

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Science certified catastrophe
Neither good science nor good history of science, really
Science certified catastrophe
smooth and flawed

Perilous Planet Earth: Catastrophes and Catastrophism through the Ages
Trevor Palmer
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521819288

Book Description

Reviewing our present concerns about the threat from natural disasters, such as asteroids and immense volcanic eruptions, within the context of history, this volume is written at a level that interests academics as well as general readers. It explains how catastrophic events have influenced the course of evolution in the distant past, and the rise and fall of civilizations in more recent times. Trevor Palmer argues that a better understanding of the past will allow humanity to take appropriate action to preserve civilization for the future.

Customer Reviews:

Science certified catastrophe.......2006-02-23

Trevor Palmer's study is a thoroughly researched, well written addition to what is now a small library documenting catastrophes in Earth history and in the history of civilization. Catastrophes may come from three sources: asteroids and comets, climatic adversities, and geophysical convulsions. All enjoy high public visibility today, but this awareness is quite recent-basically since about 1980. Prior to that, belief in catastrophes was dismissed by progressive thought as a remnant of religious delusions, which thrive on the frisson of sudden interventions by the gods. The possibility that these delusions might be the mythopoetic expression of the experience of naturally-caused events was dismissed because, it was said, nature operates by regular natural laws, not by unpredictable fits and starts. When it was pointed out that volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, and such like meet this description, the response was that they are purely local events lacking the muscle to threaten civilization. The received wisdom was especially hostile to the idea that rocks from space could threaten life on Earth. All that's now changed. Global warming and the destruction of biodiversity are accepted by the international community to place civilization at risk. Astronomy, inundated with data gathered by space exploration, learned that there are billions of loose rocks in the asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter, and that they have struck the inner planets, including Earth, many times. The inner planets, they say, are a `cosmic shooting gallery' so active that asteroids even strike asteroids! Two of the five mass extinctions are confirmed as resulting from asteroid strikes plus volcanoes, and the other three may be due to the same causes. By an ironic twist in the progress of knowledge, the denial of catastrophes is now the delusion. Palmer's study is the best available guide to this momentous change in the view of our place in nature.

Neither good science nor good history of science, really.......2005-09-30

This book was recommended reading for an independent studies course in "Dinosaurs in Science and Culture" for which I had agreed to be a faculty consultant. I initially had high hopes for this book, as it purported to look at an interesting topic: the history of catastrophic ideas in science, starting from the catastrophic views from a religious perspective that dominated pre 19th century science, moving on to the post-Lyellian scientific dogmatism of uniformitarianism, the catastrophic views from outside of mainstream science that came into popularity during the mid 20th century (e.g., the sinking of Atlantis, Velikovsky, etc.), and finally the surge of neocatastrophic thinking in the past few decades with the rise views among the scientific establishment that extraterrestrial events could play a role in organismal extinctions.

However, while I found the earlier part of the book interesting, if a little pedantic (but note that I have no special expertise in this area besides a vague familiarity, and memories of reading Velikovsky as a teenager), I was deeply disappointed in the coverage of the more recent events. As someone Who Was There, the coverage is neither a good scientific synthesis, nor a good history of the science, but instead a rather bland recitation of various views garnered primarily from secondary or tertiary sources (such as "The Book of Life"). I will admit that Palmer lays out the astronomical backing to the changes in paleontological thought quite well ---- the increases in 20th century of our understanding of astronomical events that could led to earthly catastrophes (evidence of comet-causing craters on the earth, the moon, and other planets, and knowledge of the vast array of junk circulating within our solar system). But the coverage of the paleontology is mediocre, at best.

For a start, the text throughout is peppered with illustrations of some of the major players (from Plato, through Cuvier, to Raup). But these depictions are, except in some rare exceptions of the author's own photos, drawings made from oft-published photographs (at least for the 20th century players) that bear an uncanny resemblence to the images constructed from those "etch-a-sketch" boxes that you see in shopping malls. Is this because the author (or the publisher) did not want to pay for the photographic copyrights?

These illustrations lead one to believe that the author will consider the role of the various personalities in the history of the ideas, but this far from the case. OK, so one can't go and interview Lyell, but one can certainly interview some of the modern scientists (or people who knew them). One reads about various players in the extinction debates as if they were mere ciphers in the production of scientific facts. We are given no notion of how personalities shaped the role of scientific advancements. Palmer's ignorance of who the scientists actually were as players in the history of neocatastrophism is perhaps best illustrated by his referral to Jack Sepkoski (the paleobiologist whose database and statistical analysis was so vital to the growth of present-day ideas about extinction events, see comments below) as "John Sepkoski" ---- this is akin to writing a treatise on the history of rock-and-roll and referring to "Mike Jagger".

If this test fails as a good history of science document, it also fails as a good account of the science. The chapters on mass extinctions, especially the end Cretaceous one, issues relating to dinosaur extinction, lack the appreciation that dinosaurs are among the least of the problems in understanding this event, and that explanations that fail to also account for the decimation of marine life (especially the plankton) are largely worthless. Palmer is also apparently unaware of how problems with fossil sampling lead to considerable problems in interpreting any information that can be gleaned from the geological record.

Finally, the fact that Palmer fails to fully appreciate the biological side (versus of the astronomical side) of events leading up to the acceptance of neocatastrophism in paleontology is best illustrated by his placement of the chapter on "Cyclic Processes and Mass Extinctions" in a completely different, subsequent, section to the one that contains the "Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth". One can read the earlier section and come away with little notion of how the more modern arguments differ fundamentally from those proposed by Velikovsky except, perhaps, for the fact that the more recent players had a better understanding of the laws of physics (little wonder my students confused the names "Velikovsky" and "Sepkoski").

Palmer largely fails to convey how the construction of data bases on the occurrences of fossil taxa in time and space, and the growth and accessibility of computerized statistical techniques during the latter part of the 20th century for their analysis, was the underpinning for the use of the fossil record in testing competing ideas about gradualistic versus catastrophic extinctions, and that it was the apparent nature of periodicity of extinctions in the marine fossil record that led to serious proposals from astronomers about how extraterrestrial events may been a key cause in earthly affairs. This is Palmer's Nemesis, indeed.

For a far superior, and easily accessible, account of the end Cretaceous extinctions, and the history of ideas in the development of notions about this event, I recommend the book on "The Evolution of the Dinosaurs" by Fastovsky and Weishampel (Cambridge, 2004), especially the recently updated second edition, although the authors are careful to avoid the type of character analysis of the players that would be important in an actual history of science tract.

Science certified catastrophe.......2004-05-03

smooth and flawed.......2004-04-13

Perilous Planet Earth (2003) is a useful general textbook on catastrophic quantavolution from the standpoint of an academic biologist. So handsomely produced is the book and by so respectable a publisher that one suspects there must be something wrong with it, and there is. It is one more attempt, and a good show, to sneak the overwhelming new paradigm of quantavolution into Victorian England. I cannot recommend it as a record of the history of the scientific movement of the fringe in its valiant and often mad efforts to crack the barriers of uniformitarianism -- it is too incomplete and strenuously current for that. The author came late upon the battleground, whence most of the corpses had been carried off.
It ignores most rough passages of the stresses in science, that are still occurring, without the full climax in sight, thus serving as a kind of Sunday School version of neo-catastrophism, and often doing this job well. For example, he donates more than his share of apologetics to the frequent efforts of scientists, ordinary and distinguished, to frustrate new theories and experiments. Yet, at the same time he does not take up the many little internecine struggles within science, whose innovators would sell their children to get back at each other for real and fancied intellectual injuriousness.
A favorite device of the author to hold his place in the mainstream of academia, while appearing to be a bold innovator, is to commit ambiguous statements of the following ilk: after some blah-blah,..."very occasionally, an outsider can introduce an important piece of evidence, or a way of looking at a situation that would never occur to a specialist schooled in a particular way of thinking. Even then, intruders should be wary of thinking that they have found a simple solution to a complex, long-standing problem, just as insiders should avoid the trap of believing that no-one without their specialist knowledge can...".. blah-blah. Much space that could be otherwise employed usefully is given over to such boring fence-straddling.
The author's 128 closely packed pages of citations of hundreds of primary and secondary sources without a single internet citation are a scandal when most of the newest science plus the old can be found cited on the Web. Apropos; I recently heard a leading physicist deliver a paper, whose contents, when printed, cited only www sources. It is possible to perceive here a policy of the publisher in cahoots with the author to ignore the web; which is like passing over your daily bread. I find no mention of Ian Tresman, whose yeoman work at building a wonderful world of internet consciousness is unique, and done on behalf of the very society that Trevor Palmer entered as a Johnny-come-lately and whose membership was so flattered by the attentions of an academic biologist that it elected him President for a time. Nor of Jill Abery or William Corliss, industrious bibliographers of the new paradigm. Incidentally this same Society's Constitution gives a vote in its elections solely to Englishmen, although most of its members are Americans and other foreigners; an understandable precaution.)
His huge set of references aside, the author does not treat significantly the spheres of astronomy, astrophysics, anthropology, art history, geochronology, historical chronology, psychology and psychiatry, linguistics, atmosphere, geology (except for lyallism), and non-English language sources (even in his monster listings). The book is unsystematic. It should not be confused with a general or special theory of catastrophism or anything else. Nor is it a disciplined or orderly history or categorization of the sciences involved.
Lest I be thought prejudiced, I should acknowledge that he mentions chapters of one of my twelve books in the field (not the major ones), and, of course, not my web site (nor his dedicated Society's web site nor any other) from which my readers download in a month more text on his subjects than will have been read by readers of his book in a year. (His book is 1,588,093th of the books on the Amazon .com sales list; files of the present author's quantavolution series were browsed or read on well over 27,000 occasions in the single month of March, 2004.) He does give considerable place, however, to Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle writer), Edgar Cayce, (the seer), Plato and a raft of Atlantis authors, and he duly earns Brownie points for obeisances to the Alvarez articles on the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.
His treatment of the giant influence in the field, that of Immanuel Velikovsky, who inspired the formation of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, is paltry, patronizing, partial, and unfair. A few paragraphs about the adventures of Venus and Mars suffice. He practically dismisses the great work on Earth in Upheaval in two sentences. On the other hand, he does not even mention the bete noire of Velikovskians, Leroy Ellenberg, whose many hundreds of pages of letters, articles, and web essays on scientific theories, scientific struggles, and diatribes against Velikovky and his supporters are better informed than Professor Palmer's work -- something that I must admit with considerable regret. I should, it goes without saying, recommend Palmer's coffee-table textbook over Ellenberg's unbound works, in a first course on quantavolution.

Alfred de Grazia
Center for Studies in Quantavolution
9 April 2004

Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinction

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The Impact of Catastrophes on Evolution
Controversial re-examination of geology's hottest topic
important information about geology and exciting
Evolutionary Catastrophies.

Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinction
Vincent Courtillot
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Similar Items:

Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago
Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: The Causes of Mass Extinctions
Mass Extinctions and Their Aftermath
Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?

ASIN: 0521891183

Book Description

Why did the dinosaurs and two-thirds of all living species vanish from the face of the Earth sixty-five million years ago? Throughout the history of life a small number of catastrophic events have caused mass extinction, and changed the path of evolution forever. Two main theories have emerged to account for these dramatic events: asteroid impact, and massive volcanic eruptions, both leading to nuclear-like winter. In recent years, the impact hypothesis has gained precedence, but Vincent Courtillot suggests that cataclysmic volcanic activity can be linked not only to the K-T mass extinction, but to most of the main mass extinction events in the history of the Earth. Courtillot's book debunks some of the myths surrounding one of the most controversial arguments in science. This story will fascinate everyone interested in the history of life and death on our planet.

Customer Reviews:

The Impact of Catastrophes on Evolution.......2007-02-27

Vincent Courtillot graduated from the Paris School of Mines, Stanford University, and the University of Paris where he is a Professor of Geophysics. Courtillot studied the earth's magnetic fields, plate tectonics, magnetic reversals, and flood basalts. He published 150 papers in professional journals, and held many official jobs (p.i). The dinosaurs and most living species became extinct about 65 million years ago. Catastrophic events have cause mass extinction and affected evolution. There are two theories for this: asteroid impact, or massive volcanic eruptions, to cause extremely cold weather from a lack of sunlight. Courtillot suggests volcanic eruption caused most mass extinctions. The `Preface' notes that most species are extinct, and there were times when this was rapid along with the appearance of new species. The fossil records gave the answer. Geochemists and geophysicists sampled and analyzed the surviving records of metals and minerals. "Deciphering past catastrophes may perhaps be the only way of predicting the future effects of human activity on this planet's climate" (p.ix).

Chapter 1 discusses mass extinction. There are a few "living fossils", but most species have a limited span of existence ranging from a few hundred thousand years to several million years (p.9). The Milankovic cycle cause variations in climate. Generally the larger or more specialized animals vanished, while the smaller or more generalized animals survived (p.16). Chapter 2 discusses an asteroid impact that led to a "nuclear winter" and the extinction of many species, such as dinosaurs (p.25). Magnetic anomalies in oceanic crusts suggest reversals in earth's magnetism over millions of years (p.54). The formation of the traps was about the same time when dinosaurs disappeared, hence the volcanist theory (p.56).

Chapter 4 explains the effects of volcanic eruptions, such as in 1783 Iceland. The destruction of vegetation and cattle led to the greatest famine; a quarter of the population died (p.61). The sulfur content determines the climactic impact (p.62). Volcanism may explain the levels of arsenic, antimony, and selenium (p.67). Volcanic gases can explain the extinction of species 65 million years ago (p.72). The greatest mass extinction occurred at the end of the Paleozoic Era (p.88). Chapter 8 tells about the Chicxulub crater that was created by a giant asteroid and discovered by oil exploration. Courtillot explains why this wouldn't cause magnetic reversal (p.130). Attempts at scientific research often tell about the researchers as much as about the object of inquiry (Chapter 9). The example is the explanation for the disappearance of the dinosaurs: asteroid or volcanoes. The story of an asteroid impact seems more believable than centuries of volcanic eruptions (p.139). Eruptions coincide with seven mass extinctions (p.141).

Chapter 10 says the gases of volcanism were sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen chloride. Human activity is now producing these same gases at the same or higher rates (p.144). Ancient catastrophes should be studied for their knowledge and to prevent another extinction. Most species have eventually died out (p.146). Only 11,000 years ago two-thirds of the large mammals in the Americas disappeared suddenly (p.147). Most species leave no fossils behind. Two catastrophe theories are popular today. An asteroid or comet hit the earth, or, there were colossal eruptions of volcanoes (p.149). Catastrophes wiped out species that had been the fittest to survive (p.154). Courtillot mentions the scientific revolution of plate tectonics (continental drift) which upset the earlier notions of an unchanging earth (p.155). What new secrets will be discovered (p.156)? [The average reader may find this hardcover book difficult.]

Controversial re-examination of geology's hottest topic.......2005-09-09

____________________________________________
We all know that a BIG meteor hit the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the
Cretaceous and wiped out the dinosaurs, right? So, big meteor-strikes
probably caused the other mass-extinctions too?

Well -- the Chicxulub impact at the KT boundary, 65 my ago, is indeed
well-documented. What's less well-known is that the Deccan Traps,
an enormous outpouring of flood-basalts in what is now western
India -- over 2 million cubic km(!) of lava, along with billions of
tons of SO2, CO2, HCl, and other toxics -- were also in full eruption
then. In fact, the famous KT iridium-signature has recently been
identified in Deccan interflow sediments [note 1]. From recent
radiometric dating, it looks like all of the Deccan eruptions occurred
within a brief, 0.7 my time-span. The biggest and most violent
eruptions apparently occurred within a few thousand years of the KT
boundary; individual flows of several thousand cubic kilometers of
basalt were not uncommon.

Compare this to the largest historic 'flood'-basalt eruption: Laki in
Iceland produced 12 cu. km of lava in 1783-84. The SO2 and other gases
that Laki released, destroyed most of the island's crops and forage.
Then 50-80% of the island's livestock, and about 1/4 of the Icelandic
people, starved to death. Laki lowered global temperatures by about
1 deg. C (from fine-particle ash & sulfur aerosols).

Extrapolating to a 5,000 cu. km flood-basalt eruption, the average
global temperature might decrease by around 7 deg. C (13 deg. F). The
volcanic HCl emissions could destroy most of the ozone layer [note 2],
dramatically increasing UV at the surface, and injuring or killing
many organisms. The familiar volcanogenic "toxics" -- F, As, Sb, Hg, Se
etc. -- would poison nearby life. And the volcanic SO2 & HCl would
cause severe acid-rain damage as they were washed out of the
atmosphere. Then, repeat this disaster with the next big eruption, over
& over again, a dozen or more times in the next 10,000 years or so. The
total 'kill factor' would very likely be greater than that from the
Chicxulub impact, albeit spread out over tens or hundreds of
thousands of years. And a more gradual die-off is (usually) a better
fit to the known fossil record.

So it turns out that the volcanists and the meteor-strike proponents
were *both* right, at least for the KT mass-extinction. The
combination of the Chicxulub strike with the Deccan mega-eruption
turned an 'ordinary' mass-extinction into the second-worst ever.
And thoroughly muddied the scientific waters while this was being
worked out. Once again, reality trumps fiction -- Nemesis atop Shiva!

But, for the 10 or so "big" mass-extinctions known [note 3], *seven*
are of the same age as major flood-basalt eruptions, vs. one or two
with major same-age impacts. And those two meteor-strikes coincide
with massive flood-basalt eruptions -- *no* major mass-extinctions
appear to be solely impact-caused. So it's fair to say that flood-basalts
are more deadly to Earthly life than meteor-strikes. And a hazard not
amenable to any engineering solution that I know of -- except being
ready to move off the planet, when the next new hot-spot head nears
breakout. Which will come, sure as death [note 4]. An unpleasant
reminder of our fragility.

Mea culpa: I'd pretty much taken the "KT impact killed off the dinos"
theory as proven -- I didn't even bother to read the last volcanist
counter-argument I saw. As Courtillot notes, I'm hardly the only one
to do so. Hey, those guys are the old fuddy-duddies, right? The
'stamp-collectors', Luis Alvarez called them. Hence this review, a
'heads-up' to others, and an expiation for me.

_Evolutionary Catastrophes_ is clearly written and is (mostly)
accessible to the general reader [note 5]. This is the latest chapter in the
gradualist vs. catastrophist dialog that is as old as geologic science.
Writing with great good humor, skepticism, and a love for a scientific
tale well-told, Courtillot goes a long way towards redressing the
balance in the hottest earth-science argument at the turn of the 21st
century. Highly recommended.
_______________
Note 1) Courtillot relates a cute story of the serendipities of field work:
a paleontology student had worked for years in one of these basins,
with little sucess. A visiting paleontologist, answering nature's call,
washed out a fine freshwater ray tooth, of a species previously known
only from Niger, "under the very eyes of the unhappy student."

2) If the eruption is powerful enough to inject HCl into the
stratosphere. Historic basalt eruptions haven't done so, but we're
talking eruptions 500 times larger than any ever seen....

3) Various authors propose from 5 to about 20 "major" mass-
extinction events. There seems (to this non-specialist) to be a rough
consensus for the "Big 5": [see SF Site review for link]

4) Though, sadly, not so predictable. Hot-spot flareups appear to be a
deep-seated core-cooling mechanism, with an unknown, but random,
trigger. Average time between breakouts seems to be around 30 my,
but the events are far from regularly-spaced. We really don't know
very much about what goes on at the Earth's core.

5) Minor caveats: Courtillot goes a bit overboard at times in
arguing for vulcanism and against impact. Nor does he pay quite
enough attention to the probable multiple causes of major mass-
extinctions. Some of the citations are incomplete, there's no
bibliography, and the index is pretty sketchy.

Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)
Review first appeared in the Arizona Geological Society newsletter, and reprinted at SF Site, April 2000. G00gle there for links.

important information about geology and exciting.......2000-09-04

This kind of analysis and extrapolation adds a great deal of information for the layman who is willing to follow the discus- sion about geology and has background such as the Mcphee books, seismic theories of interior earth movements and plate tectonics. Because it is written by a French Scientist I feel it may not be given the attention it might if written by an American. It is slow going in the beginning because he explains the Alvarez discoveries and theories in more detail than I had previously had. When he gets to the discussion of the great volcanic events that created the huge lava plateaus such as the one in the Grand Coullee in Washington State, it gets very exciting because he gives a great deal of information that is new to me. This infor- mation brings a whole new dimension to plate techtonics, hot spots and possible extinctions. A great adventure in time.

Evolutionary Catastrophies........2000-04-11

Probably no single mass extinction of the five known to have occurred has captured popular notice so thoroughly as has the KT event. Ideas about what might have caused this disaster, which may have brought about the end of the dinosaurs, abound and range from change in the oxygen content of the atmosphere to astroid impacts. Mr. Courtillot, a French investigator of the Deccan Traps in India and China, has been the leading proponent of the volcanic-climatic disaster motif. In this book he defends his hypothesis, primarily against its leading opponent the Alvarez' astroidal impact theory, and believes that the evidence from the field more completely supports his theory of the cause of extinctions, not only at the KT boundary but through most of life's history. The volume is somewhat less readable than the Alvarez book (see T. Rex and the Crater of Doom or the review of it under my name), because it contains more technical information. The author defines many of his terms for the lay reader, but the discussion is definitely more understandable for the reader with some knowledge of geology in his/her background.

The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions

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An Excellent, Well-Written Thesis
Informative and Entertaining
The End of the Dinosaurs
Great Little Book
End of the Dinosaurs.

The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions
Charles Frankel
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom
Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Comets, Craters, Controversy, and the Last Days of the Dinosaurs
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago
Rain of Iron & Ice (Helix Books)

ASIN: 0521474477

Book Description

The discovery of the giant Chicxulub impact crater, buried off the coast of Mexico, unveiled the solution to one of Earth's greatest mysteries--what killed the dinosaurs. Scientists uncovered physical evidence to explain the mass extinction that rocked the Earth 65 million years ago. Step-by-step, The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions tells this great scientific detective story. Charles Frankel recounts the birth of the cosmic hypothesis, which holds that the crash of a meteor on the Earth's surface killed two-thirds of life and all the dinosaurs. He first provides a dramatic account of the impact and its aftermath. Frankel then goes on to detail the controversy that preceded the acceptance of the cosmic hypothesis, the search for the crater, its discovery and ongoing exploration, and the effect of the giant impact on the biosphere. In addition, he reviews other mass extinctions in the fossil record and the threat of asteroids and comets to our planet today. More than 70 photographs and diagrams enhance and help illustrate the material. Filled with drama and interesting science, The End of the Dinosaurs will readily appeal to both the general reader fascinated with the subject and the specialist always searching for more clues to this great mystery. Charles Frankel has written a number of articles on the earth sciences in books and magazines. His many books include Volcanoes of the Solar System (Cambridge University Press 1996).

Customer Reviews:

An Excellent, Well-Written Thesis.......2007-07-11

Charles Frankel's book "The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions" is a well-written, thoroughly researched thesis on the theory of a meteor impact that resulted in the mass extinctions of dinosaurs and other species 65 million years ago.

The author requires no prior knowledge of geology, astronomy, archeology, or paleontology. Instead, he carefully outlines all of the accumulated scientific evidence from these fields of science and presents a convincing argument in support of the impact theory as the cause of the mass extinctions documented in the fossil record. He also presents opposing theories and his arguments against them. The book is nicely illustrated with interesting photographs that supplement the salient points of each chapter.

The book is an easy read, especially for a scientific thesis, and is constructed concisely and intuitively, without the repetitiveness often suffered in similar non-fiction works. I enjoyed reading it on vacation in the Caribbean where I was delighted to be able to spot, in some exposed cliffs, the K-T geologic boundary the author describes so well!

I later shared the book with my 14 year old son, who used the book as his primary resource for a school paper on the subject of an important historical event. My son also found the book to be fascinating, lucid, and eminently readable.

I highly recommend this outstanding work of non-fiction.

Informative and Entertaining.......2005-05-23

This book is an entertaining and informative explanation of how scientists posed the theory that an asteriod had caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, found evidence that supported the theory, searched for the crater, and eventually linked the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan Peninsula to the extinctions.

This book is also a wonderful illustration of how the scientific process works, what scientific controversy looks like, and how people from many different scientific disciplines can work together to advance knowledge. The author provides enough background information for the lay reader to understand the basic situation, but not so much that the reader gets bogged down in details. With a publication date of 1999, it is perhaps a bit dated, but it is well worth reading.

The End of the Dinosaurs.......2002-11-23

The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions written by Charles Frankel is an account of the hunt for, finding, and the theory and controversy assoicited with the great mass extinction that rocked the Earth 65 million years ago.

This book encompasses some great detective work and recounts the birth of the cosmic hypothesis that the effects of a giant impact created on the eart's biosphere led to the exticntion of one very successful life forms on earth... dinosauria.

The descriptions of the crater geology is in terms that the layperson can understand and comprehend. This is ment to pique your interest into Earth sciences and there is and index and bibliography for further study if warrented.

What I found to be the greatest asset in reading this book is the detective work involve in finding the impact area on earth that coinsided with the correct time frame to prove that the impact of an extraterresstial source was one of the contributing factors that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

There are photos within this book that show impacts throughout the earth, but the only one that can be linked to 65 millions years ago is Chicxulub in the Northern edge of the Yucatan in Mexico. It amazes me how the geologists work and came up with this site. Iridium was only one of the clues that the geologists used to track down the date of tthe impact, but closer to the impact site there were other telltale signs.

Around the Gulf of Mexico, unusual outcrops are found at the K-T boundary. K-T stands for Late Cretaceous-Tertiary begining. In El Penon, Mexico, a thick sandstone unit is interpreted to be a catastrophic tsunami deposit, laid down by the impact. Where it is capped by a fine clay displaying a wavy pattern, thought to mark the oscilation of the current as the tsunami wave sloshed back and forth across the continental platform. When you take a cross-section of the clay you can really see the the ripple marks, making testament to the current switching directions.

From Mexico, to Haiti and around the Gulf of Mexico you see this clay layer and sandstone around the K-T boundary denoting an impact, but what really piqued my interest here was the fine of the ejecta known as spherules and tektites. Tektites are spashes of the impact melt that take on aerodynamic shapes as they spin through the Earth's atmosphere.

On a different note... why are comet more dangerous to Earth than asteroid... because of the sublimation of the ices heated by sunlight. The jets of gas act as reactors and constantly modify the comet's trajectory. Thus, making comets less predictable than asteroids.

This book takes the reader on a journey into Earth Science and shows us what can happen... fascinating what asteroids, meteorites, bolides and comets can do to the rich complexity of the biosphere, not only then, but today as well.

Great Little Book.......2002-05-27

This great little book is far more than promised by the title -- although I must admit that I grabbed it because of the title, so I can hardly fault them for picking something dinosaur oriented.

Yes, we get a history of the scientific controversies leading to the widespread acceptance of a meteorite/comet strike as the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs. But there's more: the book reviews the evidence for associations between bolide strikes and all of the major mass extinctions in earth history. In prose that's clear, but not dry, Frankel reveals what we know -- and don't know -- about these events. Good illustrations and intelligent speculation round out a first-rate and quite up-to-date overview of a rapidly developing field.

One subtext of Frankel's work is how scientist adapt (and in some cases don't adapt) to new evidence. For example, the Siberian Tunguska explosion of 1908 is now widely acknowledged to have been a strike from a comet fragment, but only 20 or so years ago you could read about it primarily in UFO magazines and "mysteries of the unexplained" books. Because science lacked an explanation for it, the explosion was largely ignored.

I second the recommendation of "The Eternal Frontier."

End of the Dinosaurs........2000-04-11

So many theories of the KT extinctions have been forwarded by scientist and lay person alike that it is almost refreshing to have it come down to the confrontation between two, or a few, major theories, in this case the "impactist" and "volcanist" theories. Frankel does a fine job of presenting a balanced and fair account of the contenting theories, particularly Courtillot's Deccan Traps volcanism (for which see Evolutionary Catastrophies or my review of it) and their supporting data. He is, however, thoroughly in the impactist camp. He gives an excellent description of the astroid and of how scientists were able to work out its size, the size of its crater, and its subsequent atmospheric and environmental effects. This is probably the best of the three books (T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, Evolutionary Catastrophies, and End of the Dinosaurs) I've recently read on the subject, although all three are worth reading.

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Fabulous
Fascinating
Mr. Rex and his pointless facility
This subject isn't written in stone - yet
This is the one that started it all...

T. rex and the Crater of Doom
Walter Alvarez
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (California World History Library)
Our Inner Ape
Dinosaurs: The Textbook
The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science

ASIN: 0691016305

Amazon.com

One of the great mysteries is what happened to the dinosaurs, and it has taken great detective work to give us an answer. In T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, some brilliant, not to mention determined, scientists roam the world and seek out the clues. What they conclude is that the earth withstood a colossal impact with a meteor (or perhaps a comet) 65 million years ago. The resulting cataclysm destroyed half the life on the planet.

Walter Alvarez, a geologist at the University of California at Berkeley, and one of the four scientists who present this theory on the mystery, tells the story in a clear narrative that contains a wealth of scientific material. The book does require an investment of attention, but the presentation is quite readable, and the story itself is fascinating.

Book Description

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.

Controversial and widely attacked during the 1980s, the impact theory received confirmation from the discovery of the giant impact crater it predicted, buried deep beneath younger strata at the north coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The Chicxulub Crater was found by Mexican geologists in 1950 but remained almost unknown to scientists elsewhere until 1991, when it was recognized as the largest impact crater on this planet, dating precisely from the time of the great extinction sixty-five million years ago. Geology and paleontology, sciences that long held that all changes in Earth history have been calm and gradual, have now been forced to recognize the critical role played by rare but devastating catastrophes like the impact that killed the dinosaurs.

Customer Reviews:

Fabulous.......2007-05-03

Don't know what else to say. If you like geology, science, natural history, dinosaurs,... any of the above? Read it!

Fascinating.......2006-08-25

Great account of the evolution of the meteor impact theory of mass extinction. He provides a detailed account of the scientific processes involved in the discovery of the Chixulub crater and its relation to the end of the Cretaceous period. As a scientist in another field, I found it to be very informative for the lay reader (non-paleontologist/geologist, etc.).

Mr. Rex and his pointless facility.......2006-06-10

So, our temporarily old Mr. Rex sees that a book consisting entirely of combat will show you a hill that floats! Not since 1937. "In such a long time, he thinks that it really develops in circumference, which is all it will ever be." So he says, anyway. Sadly, this stuff used to be quite numerous in the market and he (the author) was different from what he says he is today, when the book is no longer being sold. How sad. This dog will cry and cry as you try to head off the exposure of this author who is far more different than you can imagine. Let him prove the contents of his own book and then let's see him leave some petal larger than itself, and maybe in some interview with temporary old Mr. Rex and his floating hill, we will see that it is time to increase the form of our philosophy, which might eventually rehabilitate objective analysis. Yes, sure, that will be the day! Then how come nobody thought to be careful in their principal object, which might be found at the very end of the book. You, along with "old" Mr. Rex, will discover this book to be indispensible if you care about profit and loss, like the author(s). Like his hill, he floats under the thought, not over it, and when he wants the growth, he extends himself laterally.

To read this book cover to cover is to be astonished about rumors of its re-publication. But, to date, the remainder piles burst any hope of a revision. The sly old dog inside the bookshop actually hopes that BallentineBooks will try to publish each one, page by page, as a "real" book made up of 256 versions of the same small page. Your risk of testing your confidence in it is minimal. As a reading device, it compares well with Dick and Jane books in terms of profit and loss or some other pointless facility. At one point he even compares gold and the chart, together. This is what he calls "being rehabilitated," and it modifies the entire thing. The critics spoke about the fact that he defends his track record as some kind of "interior research", when in fact it is a plain old criminal record, the risks of which we will all have to carry together. If he wishes to make his company legitimate, maybe this book can be in a company of one.

This subject isn't written in stone - yet .......2006-04-25

I started reading Vincent Courtillot's Evolutionary Catastrophes (volcanism) first in order to gain a handle on the mass extinction argument and found that this book challenges Walter Alvarez's book T. Rex And The Crater of Doom (comet or asteroid bombardment). Therefore, I started reading that at the same time; which got me to pull out and start skimming David Levy's Impact Jupiter (comet expert). In the meantime, I thought it prudent to start reading The Behavior of the Earth by Claude Allegre (plate tectonics), and picked up Steven Stanley's book Extinction (global climate change). Recently I saw via a Google search that Linda Elkins-Tanton now thinks that perhaps meteorite bombardment could have allowed hot magma to vent thus causing global climate change and hence the mass extinctions. This is fun!

This is the one that started it all..........2005-12-01

This is the book that started it all: Dinosaur extinction by bolide from outer space. Catastrophic tsunamis. Intercontinental ejecta layer. Geologic evidence everywhere you look once you know where to look. And the laughingstock of serious geologists everywhere until the evidence started mounting up to where it couldn't be ignored.

This is the story of Walter Alvarez and his colleagues and their careful science that yielded ideas, insights, and then, whammo! the Big Idea that there might be an external component to the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It is a forensic mystery worthy of "CSI" except this is the real deal, and the slog work of doing research took this band of scientists all over the world in search of enlightenment. Leveraging new developments in dating techniques and the best minds in the field and out of it (did I mention that Walter Alvarez is the son of Luis Alvarez, the Nobel Award winner for physics?), the adventure is somewhat stalled until the discovery of oil company drilling cores from the Chixulub region of Mexico that confirm evidence of an impact in that region. It is an eleventh-hour discovery just as interest is waning and funding is running out - a development worthy of the "Nova" episode that it eventually became.

As much fun as it is to read mysteries, it is equally fun to read about the real-life trials and tribulations of a band of intrepid individuals who have a hypothesis and then are able to methodically test it, with startling results. One of the joys of this book is Alvarez's generosity toward those whose work supported him and propelled him forward, as well as his occasional head-scratching humility. This really isn't a vanity piece but it is a definite good read.

Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Comets, Craters, Controversy, and the Last Days of the Dinosaurs

Average customer rating:

Lack of objectivity. An embarassingly one-sided shill.
A very clear account, but of questionable objectivity....
A great description of science from the inside
Night Comes to the Cretaceous
How Scientific Revolutions Actually Happen

Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Comets, Craters, Controversy, and the Last Days of the Dinosaurs
James Lawrence Powell
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comets, Meteors & Asteroids | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

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Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?
The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions
T. Rex and the Crater of Doom
Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: The Causes of Mass Extinctions
Mysteries of Terra Firma: The Age and Evolution of the Earth

ASIN: 0156007037

Book Description

What killed the dinosaurs? For more than a century, this question has been one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. But, in 1980, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, proposed a radical answer: 65 million years ago an asteroid or comet as big as Mt. Everest slammed into the earth, raising a dust cloud vast enough to cause mass extinction. A revolutionary idea that challenged the ice-age extinction theory, the asteroid-impact theory was scorned and derided by the science community. But after years of bitter debate and intense research, an astonishing discovery was made-an immense impact crater in the Yucatán Peninsula that was identified as Ground Zero. The Alvarezes had their proof. A dramatic scientific detective story, Night Comes to the Cretaceous is a brilliant example of science at work-in the trenches, complete with passionate struggles and occasional victories.

Customer Reviews:

Lack of objectivity. An embarassingly one-sided shill........2005-03-11

I was hoping for a balanced analysis supporting the dinosaur extinctions via an asteroid doing a number on mother earth. Instead I got a steady dose of denunciations towards anyone who disagreed with the asteroid theory. The tone is palatable at first but after a while repeating the same canard over and over does tend to get tiresome. Around page 170 or so I realized that I was reading an apologist for the asteroid theory.

I was very disappointed that other theories were given short shrift and at times almost mocked. This is a so so book about dinosaur extinctions but I am waiting for a truly meaty and balanced book.

A very clear account, but of questionable objectivity...........2005-02-08

I did't find this book to be a particularly good review of the dinosaurs-vs-meteorite controversy. The narrative is clear and captivating, and accounts of the several open (or closed!) disputes, rooted in disparate fields of Earth sciences, is made accessible to the layreader or those with just a modest background in natural sciences. Nevertheless, Powell holds a one-sided approach right from the beginning, pointlessly crusading against some supposedly general backward attitude in geologists and paleontologists that actually never was there, except for a very few unfortunate cases. Everyone now agrees on evidence for a massive extraterrestrial impact dated around 65 million years ago, but the main issue is presently whether that was the ultimate cause of the mass extinction or other earth-bound factors and feedbacks played a role in driving interactions between physical environment and the biosphere toward a mass extinction. Powell leaves no room for such developments.
In particular, I'd have two specific objections to specific cases presented in the book: 1)On pages 172-174 taxonomic analysis of dinosaur diversity in the highest stratigraphic stages of the Cretaceous in Montana is reported as evidence in favour of a sudden crisis of the original ecosystem. Pete Sheehan and co-workers carried on their studies at the taxonomic rank of families, which resulted numerically stable with time approaching the K-T boundary. Only, John Horner recently reviewed their work at a species level, likely to be statistically and biologically more reliable indicator of biodiversity, and found out a steady decrease of dinosaur types through time. Such reconsideration of Sheehan's research thus reverses evidence against the impact hypothesis! 2) The section "Did impact cause all extinctions?" introduces the final part of the book which has absolutely nothing to do with the K-T event per se, and presents us with Raup's "impact-kill curve" which was originally just an interesting exercise in statistics, but lacking a solid connection with the actual geo-paleontological database of major mass extinctions (let alone minor ones..) and thus oversimplifies the subject. Yet the author all too enthousiastically takes sides with the "impactors" and loses objectivity, even falling in contradiction (Page 192:"Not enough firm evidence is available to corroborate the claim that impact is responsible for any other mass extinction boundary than the K-T event..." Page 196:"..how are we to escape the conclusion that not just in theory, but in practice, impact has caused many extinctions?")
More poignantly however, scientific arguments and debates against the "impact hypothesis" haven't been introduced thoroughly enough but too quickly glossed over, although numerous in the recent scientific literature...
Without deceiving myself of having read a downright objective account, I'm afraid this is the best available book about the (still ongoing...) debate, together with J.D.Archibald's "Dinosaur Extinction and the End of an Era: What the Fossils Say", which is possibly far more objective though...

A great description of science from the inside.......2004-08-07

This is one of the best science books I have ever read, and a great description of how science works from the inside. Scientists aren't impartial godlike figures, they're human beings just like the rest of us.This book details how a geologist, by bringing his father an interesting rock--a polished specimen that included the K-T boundary layer, deposited when the dinosaurs all vanished--started a controversy that revolutionized and redefined the entire field of earth sciences. Personally, I love it when that happens, that's how science is supposed to work, but people who have built their entire careers on the old view of things can have a very difficult time accepting a new paradigm, and will go to ludicrous extremes to defend the old one to their dying breath. The impact theory of extinctions is one of the scariest concepts I have ever come across, but I am a lot happier knowing how things really work. This is an utterly fascinating read, and I can't recommend it strongly enough. To anyone interested in geology, astronomy, dinosaurs, (who isn't interested in dinosaurs??), or the workings of science, I can only say---READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Night Comes to the Cretaceous.......2003-08-01

All in all, James Lawrence Powell did a superb job in writing this book. He is highly opinionated and interprets data in a manner to support his fundamental belief (that an asteroid caused the KT extinctions).
I advise readers to get a balanced view by also reading "The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controvery" by Charles Officer and Jack Page. I felt that Powell covered the topic very thoroughly and provided historical context to help the novice extinctions reader. I felt that the book was very weak in dicussing the paleontological aspects of the extinction. Next revision perhaps.

How Scientific Revolutions Actually Happen.......2003-06-13

One of the great scientific revolutions of our times has been the recognition that the biological evolution of Earth is influenced random impacts by comets and asteroids. When this concept was put forward in 1980, it was radical; today it is the accepted wisdom in paleontology, geology, and evolutionary biology. Jim Powell tells a fascinating story of the evidence for this transformation and of the scientists who have been protgonists in the struggle to understand this evidence and integrate it into our broader undestanding of our planet. This is one of the best books ever written to trace the history of a scientific controversy and of the people involved, warts and all.

A Continent Revealed: The European Geotraverse, Structure and Dynamic Evolution

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A Continent Revealed: The European Geotraverse, Structure and Dynamic Evolution

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 052142948X

Book Description

A Continent Revealed presents the findings of the European Geotraverse (EGT)--a unique study of the tectonic evolution of the continent of Europe and the first comprehensive cross section of the continental lithosphere. The project produced maps and geologic profiles, along a 250 kilometer wide swath stretching 4600 kilometers from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, which form a three dimensional picture of the structure, properties, and composition of the continental lithosphere of Europe in an atlas format. Many of the data that comprise the maps are also presented on an compact disc (ROM). The discussion volume, the maps, and a booklet containing gravity, electric, and magnetic field data constitute the complete boxed set. The paperback discussion volume is also available separately.

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