Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-243) and index.
Contents:
Arriving -- Bones in the Karoo -- Gradual or sudden? -- Land and sea -- Karoo magnetics -- A change of rivers -- The stone house at Tussen die Riviere -- Retrieval -- The rate of killing -- Drawing conclusions -- Buckyballs -- A new kind of extinction -- Resolution -- Legacy and lessons of a catastrophe : are we living on a safe planet?
Summary:
The gorgons ruled the land long before there were any dinosaurs, until an environmental cataclysm 250 million years ago annihilated them--along with 90 percent of all plant and animal species on the planet--in an event so terrible even the extinction of the dinosaurs pales in comparison. For more than a decade, Ward and his colleagues have been searching South Africa's Karoo Desert for clues to this world: What were these animals like? How did they live and, more important, how did they die? In this book, Ward examines the fate of this little-known prehistoric animal and its contemporaries, the ancestors of the turtle, the crocodile, the lizard, and eventually dinosaurs. He offers theories on these mass extinctions and confronts the implications they hold for us.--From publisher description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.