T. Rex and the Crater of Doom cover art

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom

Princeton Science Library

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom

By: Walter Alvarez, Carl Zimmer - foreword
Narrated by: Joel Richards
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £11.77

Buy Now for £11.77

Summary

Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mount Everest slammed into the Earth, inducing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of 100,000,000 hydrogen bombs. Vaporized detritus blasted through the atmosphere upon impact, falling back to Earth around the globe. Disastrous environmental consequences ensued: a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions returned to normal, half the plant and animal genera on Earth had perished.

This horrific chain of events is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific mystery: What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Walter Alvarez, one of the Berkeley scientists who discovered evidence of the impact, tells the story behind the development of the initially controversial theory. It is a saga of high adventure in remote locations, of arduous data collection and intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughs, of friendships made and lost, and of the exhilaration of discovery that forever altered our understanding of Earth's geological history.

©1997 Princeton University Press (P)2020 Tantor Biological Sciences Earth Sciences Environment Science Paleontology Natural History
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
All stars
Most relevant
This a charming personal account of the scientific search to find & understand the cause of the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Note that its not about the dinosaurs themselves who were not at fault for suffering a sudden demise. The author was a major participant in this geological mystery so is writing from first hand experience. He does his best to simply explain basic geological terms & thinking for but inevitably a basic understanding of chemistry & physics will help the layman reader to follow the plot. Its a fascinating story & very well told.

K/T Boundary

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Told you the ups and down of science and nobody takes your word you have to prove it

Very hard science made easy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Obviously interresting. A b c d e f g h i j k l m

Good length

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This seems to have originally been published 25 years ago so no new information but I had not read anything with as much detail about the work that led to the discovery of the chicxulub crater and the author tells the story in an engaging and balanced way. Liked the narration

Old book but detailed enough to remain fresh

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well written account of what was a controversial theory and is now the mainstream . However little of the scientific infighting and backfiring which is occasioned when accepted ideas and therefore reputations are challenged finds its way to this story. Meanwhile in other books fur feathers and hot and cold blood erupt like a T rex luncheon.

Polite Discovery

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews