Extinctions

A journey through the great mass-extinction events that have shaped our Earth. In this vast sweep of our Earth¿s history, Michael Benton brings the deep past to life as never before. Deploying the cutting-edge tools in biology, chemistry, physics and geology that are transforming our understanding of previous environmental cataclysms ¿ including the incredible new discovery of a hitherto unknown extinction event ¿ he uncovers not only their lethal effects but also the processes that brought about such large-scale destruction. Beginning with the oldest extinction, Benton investigates the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the late Devonian, brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, which wiped out over 90 per cent of all life on Earth; and, book-ending the age of the dinosaurs, the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, e