Night Comes to the Cretaceous
Comets, Craters, Controversy, and the Last Days of the Dinosaurs
1999
First Published
4.14
Average Rating
272
Number of Pages
What killed the dinosaurs? For more than a century, this question has been one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. But, in 1980, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, proposed a radical answer: 65 million years ago an asteroid or comet as big as Mt. Everest slammed into the earth, raising a dust cloud vast enough to cause mass extinction. A revolutionary idea that challenged the ice-age extinction theory, the asteroid-impact theory was scorned and derided by the science community. But after years of bitter debate and intense research, an astonishing discovery was made-an immense impact crater in the Yucatán Peninsula that was identified as Ground Zero. The Alvarezes had their proof. A dramatic scientific detective story, Night Comes to the Cretaceous is a brilliant example of science at work-in the trenches, complete with passionate struggles and occasional victories.
Avg Rating
4.14
Number of Ratings
65
5 STARS
35%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
22%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
James Lawrence Powell
Author · 12 books
Dr. James L. Powell graduated from Berea College with a degree in Geology. He holds a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught Geology at Oberlin College for over 20 years. He served as Acting President of Oberlin, President of Franklin and Marshall College, President of Reed College, President of the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, and President and Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Powell currently serves as Executive Director of the National Physical Science Consortium. Asteroid 1987 SH7 is named for him.
