Riley Black

An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.

Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet.

The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.

Willkommen in der Kreidezeit! Am Rande eines Waldes – etwa dort, wo sich heute die berühmte Fossilienstätte Hell Creek (Montana/USA) befindet – schlendert gemächlich ein Triceratops horridus umher. Doch die Idylle trügt, denn in ein paar Stunden wird hier alles ausgelöscht sein, das üppige Grün der Urzeitpflanzen dem Feuer weichen. Der Tyrannosaurus rex wird von seinem Thron gestürzt werden, zusammen mit den meisten anderen Dinosaurierarten. Als wahrscheinlichste Ursache für diese Katastrophe vor 66 Millionen Jahren gilt ein Asteroid, der mit seinem Einschlag im Golf von Mexiko einen gewaltigen Klimawandel auslöste und das Aussterben von 75% der damals lebenden Arten nach sich zog. In diesem unterhaltsamen wie fundierten Werk teilt die amerikanische Dinosaurierexpertin Riley Black neueste Forschungsergebnisse und unternimmt mit uns eine furiose Reise durch die Tage, Monate und Jahrtausende nach dem zerstörerischen Ereignis, das den Weltlauf veränderte und dem wir unsere Existenz verdanken.

Warum ihr Ende unser Anfang war und was ein Asteroid damit zu tun hat

Die letzten Tage der Dinosaurier

A highlight-reel history of the dinosaurs, told like never before—bringing their world to vivid life in a paleontological detective story The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs tells the 230-million-year epic of these staggeringly fascinating prehistoric creatures, covering their small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and stunning evolutionary success—before an unthinkable asteroid event brought everything to a screeching halt. But this history digs deeper, using numerous recent fossil discoveries and fresh understandings of genetics and evolution to show how we’ve gleaned so much about a long-lost world from mere fragments of fossil. Marshaling the evidence, award-winning author Riley Black reveals the startling relationships that dinosaurs shared with one another, the land they lived on, and other animal species. By conjuring a more complete picture of Earth in the age of the dinosaurs, she shows us how these massive monsters owe their rise to luck as much as to their cunning—and the many surprising ways they left an indelible mark on their dramatically changing world. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.

The 230-Million-Year Story of Their Time on Earth

The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs

"What lies beneath the surface of the ocean has mystified humankind for millennia. Today, we have explored more of the surface of the Moon than we have of the deep sea. What thrives in these mysterious depths, how did these life forms evolve from ancient life, and how has this environment changed over time as our planet has developed? Organized by ocean depth and with "fossil fanatic" science writer Riley Black as our guide, Deep Water explains the origins of this unique habitat, what lives there, how it has evolved, and what the future will bring to this dark and mysterious environment"--

From the Frilled Shark to the Dumbo Octopus and from the Continental Shelf to the Mariana Trench

Deep Water

Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanish seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life of Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years. In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact. Life's losses were sharp and deeply felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.

An Asteroid, Extinction and the Beginning of Our World

Deep time is the timescale of the geological events that have shaped our planet. Whilst so immense as to challenge human understanding, its evidence is nonetheless visible all around us. Through explanations of the latest research and over 200 fascinating images, Deep Time explores this evidence, from the visible layers in ancient rock to the hiss of static on the radio, and from fossilized shark’s teeth to underwater forests. These relics of ancient epochs, many of which we can see and touch today, connect our present to the distant past and answer broader questions about our place in the timeline of the Earth. Charting 4.5 billion years of geological history, this is the story of our world, from its birth to the dawn of civilization.

A journey through 4.5 billion years of our planet

Deep Time

Carving a timeline through the aeons of evolution that have taken place before our time on Earth, Deep Time explores the evidence that exists beneath our feet, in our museums, in the skies and surrounding us every day, which can help us to make sense of the great age of our world.

Riley Black

About

Books

Join the club