Charles Frankel (2)

If your interested in how the dinosaurs disappeared, this is the book for you. It gives a detailed account of the mass extinction that rocked the earth 65 million years ago. The author focuses his attention on how and why Chicxulub crater was determined to be the smoking gun of the extinction of the dinos. The story is really well written, and he describes how the crater was discovered, how it was connected to the death of the dinosaurs. He shows the evidence that the scientist's used to convict the Chicxulub crater as the guilty party, and he makes you feel as if your part og the story, examining the evidence with the scientist's on their hunt for the answer to what killed off the dinosaurs 65 MYA.… (mere)

I gave it five stars in spite of the last two chapters, which are just that bad.

This is a terrific history of the development and investigation of the hypothesis that a huge meteor caused the mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous. The prose is tight and straightforward. It suited my degree of comprehension perfectly: I didn't feel written-down-to, and those things that I didn't already understand were explained. There are ample illustrations and they complement the text well. Professional disagreements are described frankly and fairly. This is exemplary non-professional science writing.

The last two chapters are the exception, but as they're not really necessary to the history of the K-T impact theory, I don't hold them against the rest of the book. Basically, they are "Could other mass extinctions have been caused by impacts?" and "Are we at risk today?" The book's answers are unequivocal "Yes"es, but I found them unconvincing. Not that I reject the possibility of other mass-extinction impacts, just that Frankel seemed to see them everywhere he looked and the evidence he adduced seems marginal compared to that for Chicxulub. As for the present risk, there are so few instances of historical humanity-threatening meteors that the discussion devolved into mythological speculation and an accounting of trivial meteoritic impacts (cars, houses, mailboxes).… (mere)