The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy

Author : Charles Officer
Publisher : Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy written by Charles Officer and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996-06-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1980 Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez announced his theory of the dinosaurs final demise: a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth and raised a cloud of dust that caused darkness for years, suppressing photosynthesis, which impeded plant growth, and eventually starved the dinosaurs. This idea exploded into common awareness with almost unprecedented speed, and was instantly embraced by the media and the public. Almost without question, it quickly became the hottest scientific "fact". Unfortunately for Alvarez, many in the scientific community did to support this theory, and in fact later research showed the impossibility of such an idea. The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy chronicles the fantastic story of how this hypothesis became so widespread, the way it became "common knowledge" - from the pages of Science to The New York Times to Parade Magazine, the controversy it caused, and the ample scientific research that proves the theory wrong. Officer and Page also present an attractive and carefully investigated alternative explanation for the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period. Through this account they show the ways that sound science should be performed and the findings transmitted.

Author : Keith Parsons
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1576079236
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Dinosaur Controversy written by Keith Parsons and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-12-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical review of the most important scientific controversies that have shaped our knowledge of dinosaurs since the discovery of important fossils in the 1820s. In The Great Dinosaur Controversy: A Guide to the Debates, the major scientific disputes that have contributed to the understanding of dinosaurs come to light. Each chapter presents a major controversy then ponders the lessons learned and their impact on the scientific field. Colorful characters such as "anti-evolutionist" Robert Owen, "Darwin's bulldog," T.H. Huxley, and "dinosaur heretic" Robert Bakker, enliven the debates, which range from the origin of dinosaurs and their posture to their evolution or retrogression and whether they were warm- or cold-blooded. Two of the most recent debates concern how dinosaurs became extinct and whether or not birds are their descendents.

Author : James Lawrence Powell
Publisher : Mariner Books
ISBN 13 : 9780156007030
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Night Comes to the Cretaceous written by James Lawrence Powell and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 Yucatan 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. "

Author : J. David Archibald
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 0801898056
Total Pages : 121 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extinction and Radiation written by J. David Archibald and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study identifies the fall of dinosaurs as the factor that allowed mammals to evolve into the dominant tetrapod form. It refutes the single-cause impact theory for dinosaur extinction and demonstrates that multiple factors--massive volcanic eruptions, loss of shallow seas, and extraterrestrial impact--likely led to their demise. While their avian relatives ultimately survived and thrived, terrestrial dinosaurs did not. Taking their place as the dominant land and sea tetrapods were mammals, whose radiation was explosive following nonavian dinosaur extinction. The author argues that because of dinosaurs, Mesozoic mammals changed relatively slowly for 145 million years compared to the prodigious Cenozoic radiation that followed. Finally out from under the shadow of the giant reptiles, Cenozoic mammals evolved into the forms we recognize today in a mere ten million years after dinosaur extinction.

Author : Walter Alvarez
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691169667
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book T. rex and the Crater of Doom written by Walter Alvarez and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 a hundred million 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.

Author : Charles Frankel
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521474474
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The End of the Dinosaurs written by Charles Frankel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The End of the Dinosaurs gives a detailed account of the great mass extinction that rocked the Earth 65 million years ago, and focuses on the discovery of the culprit: the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico. It recounts the birth of the cosmic hypothesis, the controversy that preceded its acceptance, the search for the crater, its discovery and ongoing exploration, and the effect of the giant impact on the biosphere. Other mass extinctions in the fossil record are reviewed, as is the threat of asteroids and comets to our planet today. The account of the impact and its aftermath is suitable for general readers. The description of the crater geology is in enough detail to interest students of the earth sciences. A detailed index and bibliography are included.

Author : David E. Fastovsky
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521811729
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs written by David E. Fastovsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-07 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2005 edition of The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs is a unique, comprehensive treatment of this fascinating group of organisms. It is a detailed survey of dinosaur origins, their diversity, and their eventual extinction. The book can easily be used as a teaching textbook for a class, but it is also written as a series of readable, entertaining essays covering important and timely topics appealing to non-specialists and all dinosaur enthusiasts: birds as 'living dinosaurs', the new feathered dinosaurs from China, 'warm-bloodedness'. Along the way, the reader learns about dinosaur functional morphology, physiology, and systematics using cladistic methodology - in short, how professional paleontologists and dinosaur experts go about their work, and why they find it so rewarding. The book is spectacularly illustrated by John Sibbick, a world-famous illustrator of dinosaurs, commissioned exclusively for this book.

Author : Melvin Berger
Publisher : Ideals Publications
ISBN 13 : 9781571020338
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Did the Dinosaurs Disappear? written by Melvin Berger and published by Ideals Publications. This book was released on 1995 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses dinosaurs and different theories regarding their extinction, including climate changes, starvation, cosmic rays, and an asteroid collision with the earth.

Author : Lowell Dingus
Publisher : W H Freeman & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780716729440
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.4X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mistaken Extinction written by Lowell Dingus and published by W H Freeman & Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two crackerjack paleontologists take readers on a brisk tour of the leading theories about the dinosaurs' disappearance. An epic tale of beautiful and terrible beasts and explosions that block out the sun, "The Mistaken Extinction" is a 65-million-year-old evolutionary murder mystery with a fascination that has yet to die out. 300 illustrations.

Author : Don Nardo
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781560068907
Total Pages : 116 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Extinction of the Dinosaurs written by Don Nardo and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the extinction of these ancient creatures and the scientific research used.