Dinosaurs, diamonds, and things from outer space : the great extinction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Dinosaurs, diamonds, and things from outer space : the great extinction
Stanford University Press, 1995
- pbk.
Available at / 1 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-231) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book explains, in a new and convincing theory, why most life on earth perished 65 million years ago. Intended for a broad audience, the book will also be of great interest to scientists - most of whom now agree that an object from outer space hit the earth with unimaginable force 65 million years ago. But what kind of object? Carlisle's scenario suggests that the event was a complex sequence, beginning with a nearby star turning supernova. The first effect of this on earth was the arrival of massive radiation, ten or twenty times the heat of the sun, igniting worldwide forest fires. The blast also perturbed the cloud of comets that surrounds the solar system, and some few centuries later one or more of these (loaded with interstellar diamonds) hit the earth, producing 'nuclear winter' and causing a tremendous acidification of the oceans. Each step of this theory is backed up by hard evidence.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction. 2. The badlands of Alberta. 3. Death and survival. 4. The cretaceous-tertiary boundary. 5. The solar system, vortices, and comets. 6. Bolide impacts and vulcanism. 7. Theories of the periodicity of extinctions. 8. Meteors and meteorites. 9. What hit at the cretaceous-tertiary boundary. 10. The energetics of impactors. 11. Supernovae and cometary acceleration. 12. The search for supernova debris. 13. A scenario. 14. Implications for evolution.
by "Nielsen BookData"
