Greenhouse of the dinosaurs
Subtitle: evolution, extinction, and the future of our planet
By: Donald R. Prothero.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 274
ISBN-13: 9780231146609; 9780231518321
Subjects: Dinosaurs -- Extinction; Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects; Geology -- United States; Paleontology -- United States
Description: "Donald Prothero links the climate changes that have occurred over the past 200 million years to their effects on plants and animals. In particular, he contrasts the extinctions that ended the Cretaceous period, which wiped out the dinosaurs, with those of the later Eocene and Oligocene epochs." "Prothero begins with the "greenhouse of the dinosaurs," the global-warming episode that dominated the Age of Dinosaurs and the early Age of Mammals. He describes the remarkable creatures that once populated Earth and draws on his experiences collecting fossils in the Big Badlands of South Dakota to sketch their world. Prothero then discusses the growth of the first Antarctic glaciers, which marked the Eocene-Oligocene transition, and shares his own anecdotes of excavations and controversies among colleagues that have shaped our understanding of the contemporary and prehistoric world. The volume concludes with observations about Nisqually Glacier and other locations that show how global warming is happening much quicker than previously predicted, irrevocably changing the balance of Earth's thermostat."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Greenhouse of the dinosaurs; title: Bad lands, good fossils; title: Magnets and lasers; title: "Punk eek" in the badlands; title: Dinosaur battles; title: Marine world; title: Rocky mountain jungles and eel's ears; title: From greenhouse to icehouse; title: Once and future greenhouse?