Extinctions

How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves

By: Michael J. Benton

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.

Beginning with the oldest, Professor Michael J. Benton takes us through the "big five" die outs: the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the Late Devonian, apparently brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, also known as the Great Dying, which wiped out over 90 percent of all life on Earth; the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event; and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, erupting volcanoes, and meteorite impact have affected conditions on Earth, and how life survived, adapted, and evolved.

In Extinctions, listeners will learn about revolutionary new tools used to uncover ancient extinction events and processes in forensic detail, and how scientists are improving our understanding of the deep past. New research allows us to link long-ago upheavals to crises in our current age, the Anthropocene, with important consequences for us all.

©2023 Michael J. Benton (P)2023 Tantor

Wonderful, thought provoking !

Who knew extinction could also be a vehicle for creation! Well presented, clear discussion of the big five extinctions and of course the current situation. Material I have read before but interesting perspective!

Gets better as you go

I found the first quarter of the book sketchy and difficult to stay focused on. This was in part due to our lack of knowledge of the early Paleozoic—there just wasn’t enough to say beyond describing the fossils, which given the audio format, had to be googled to be visualized. As he gets closer to the present, and especially, into his own area of research, more fascinating research is introduced and the writing gets more vivid. Then at the end, the connections between previous extinction events and this present one were sketchy again and culminated with a rather depressing and helpless whimper in the face of our current plummeting levels of biodiversity (which is entirely appropriate, but still)

Interesting read

It was a plethora of knowledge and enjoyed the read. A bit dry but overall very insightful!