The Worst of Times : : How Life on Earth Survived Eighty Million Years of Extinctions / / Paul B. Wignall.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Wignall, Paul B.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Edition: Pilot project. eBook available to selected US libraries only
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.) :; 16 color illus. 2 halftones. 11 line illus.

Two hundred sixty million years ago, life on Earth suffered wave after wave of cataclysmic extinctions, with the worst wiping out nearly every species on the planet. The Worst of Times delves into the mystery behind these extinctions and sheds light on the fateful role the primeval supercontinent, known as Pangea, might have played in causing these global catastrophes. Drawing on the latest discoveries as well as his own firsthand experiences conducting field expeditions to remote corners of the world, Paul Wignall reveals what scientists are only now beginning to understand about the most prolonged and calamitous period of environmental crisis in Earth's history. Wignall shows how these series of unprecedented extinction events swept across the planet, killing life on a scale more devastating than the dinosaur extinctions that would follow. The Worst of Times unravels one of the great enigmas of ancient Earth and shows how this ushered in a new age of vibrant and more resilient life on our planet.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- PROLOGUE -- CHAPTER 1. A TIME OF DYING -- CHAPTER 2. EXTINCTION IN THE SHADOWS -- CHAPTER 3. THE KILLING SEAS -- CHAPTER 4. TROUBLED TIMES IN THE TRIASSIC -- CHAPTER 5. TRIASSIC DOWNFALL -- CHAPTER 6. PANGEA'S FINAL BLOW -- CHAPTER 7. PANGEA'S DEATH AND THE RISE OF RESILIENCE -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- INDEX