Walter Alvarez
Author
Pub. Date
[2017]
Physical Desc
246 pages ; 25 cm
Description
"Famed geologist Walter Alvarez expands our view of human history by revealing the cosmic, geologic, and evolutionary forces that have shaped us. Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. In The Little Book of Big History, geologist Walter Alvarez--best known for his 'Impact Theory' explaining dinosaur extinction--makes a compelling case for...
Author
Pub. Date
c2009
Physical Desc
xiii, 304 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Description
Walter Alvarez and his team made one of the most astonishing scientific discoveries of the twentieth century--that an asteroid smashed into the earth 65 million years ago, exterminating the dinosaurs. Alvarez had the first glimmer of that amazing insight when he noticed something odd in a rock outcrop in central Italy. Alvarez now returns to that rich terrain, this time to take the reader on an excavation of the earth's distant past. We encounter...
Author
Pub. Date
[2015]
Physical Desc
xxii, 185 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm.
Description
Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mount Everest slammed into the Earth, inducing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Vaporized detritus blasted through the atmosphere upon impact, falling back to Earth around the globe. Disastrous environmental consequences ensued: a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions...