Gorgon: The Monsters that Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and how They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's HistoryMillions of years before the Age of Dinosaurs, an environmental cataclysm annihilated 90 percent of all plant and animal life on the planet. In this lost world that was swept away 250 million years ago, the ferocious lizard-like Gorgon was the T. rex of its day. In this remarkable journey of discovery deep into Earth's history, Peter D. Ward, one of the world's most recognized authorities on mass extinctions, examines the strange and mysterious fate of this little-known prehistoric animal and its contemporaries--the ancestors of the turtle, the crocodile, the lizard, and eventually the dinosaur. Based on more than a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert, Ward's groundbreaking work offers provocative theories on the mass extinctions of the past and confronts the startling implications they hold for humanity's future on the planet. |
Contents
Arriving | 1 |
Bones in the Karoo | 16 |
Gradual or Sudden? | 46 |
Copyright | |
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250 million ancient Karoo animals arrived asteroid beds began Bethel Canyon Bethulie bone Caledon River Cape Town carbon catastrophe caused climbed cold collecting color core crew death Dicynodon dinosaurs discovery drill earth event extinction boundary farm field fossils Fouche geological geologists Georgie giant Gillian King Gorgon Graaff-Reinet head heat Hedi hour huge impact isotopic James Kitching Joe Kirschvink Ken MacLeod killed Kitching knew land living looked Lootsberg Pass Lystrosaurus magnetic mammal-like reptiles mammals mass extinction million years ago morning mountain mudstones never night outcrop oxygen paleontologist perhaps Permian Permian-extinction boundary Permian/Triassic piles plants road Roger Smith samples sandstone sediment sedimentary rock shale skeleton skull slowly South Africa South African Museum species Stone House strata stratigraphic things ticks tinction tion took Triassic trip truck valley vertebrates walked