Customer Reviews

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom (Vintage)

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4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The strong points in this book are these:

1) it is a thoroughly entertaining detailed account of the discovery of the causes for the mass extinction which occurred at the K-T boundary, and

2) it provides an insightful anaylsis of the many pitfalls, lucky strikes, and false trails which are characterstic of any process of true scientific discovery. As such it reminds us of how careful and open-minded scientists need to be in dealing with new insights and discoveries.

For those who are trained scientists, the book is mainly written for the layperson, especially the geological aspects, but that is fine, because as a geologist I am strongly of the view that we need more geological education and understanding in the general community. It is fine if science is written simplistically as long as it is accurate. Walter Alvalrez, for the most part, with perhaps a few exceptions, has managed to achieve this careful tension. The book is not an overview of the various theories and developments concerning mass extinction events, but rather a story of the search told by some who have been deeply involved. Therefore the fact that it doesn't provide an objective overview of the available theories, whilst true, is not really relevant here; Walter Alvarez is telling a story of mostly his own experiences, and those with whom he has worked. As long as this is understood, the book is educational, entertaining, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I would like to add for those with some knowledge of geological science, that we have some very good exposures of the Permian-Triassic boundary in Australia, which Mr Alvarez notes is not so common in the northern hemisphere. This boundary is recognised as the biggest mass extinction of all, and some of these exposures have not been studied in much detail,let alone from the point of view of mass extinctions. Perhaps, being thus far somewhat geographically isolated from the scientific community of the northern hemisphere, Australia will provide some exciting new developments in our understanding of mass extinctions.

This is the story of the discovery of why the dinosaurs -- and so many other creatures -- went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Walter Alvarez was a young geologist who discovered an "iridium anomaly" in a deposit at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary that strongly suggested that an extraterrestrial event of massive effect had happened then. He was joined by his father, Luis Alvarez, a physicist at Berkeley, in the pursuit of the significance of this finding. It seems hard to believe, but most geologists were reluctant to posit anything like a meteor strike as being a significant factor in Earth's history, preferring to explain everything by invoking gradual processes.

Yet it became clear early on that something big had happened, and various candidates were mooted, such as a nearby supernova, or a companion star to the sun periodically throwing comet orbits out of whack. This book is the story of how geologists, chemists, physicists and others over more than a decade closed in on the solution -- a massive impact in the Yucatan Penninsula whose after-effects shrouded the Earth in darkness for many months -- starting with that original discovery back in 1977. This is a reasonably lightweight account, but with enough details to give the reader a good idea of the technical problems without descending into jargon. When you are done you don't really know much more geology than when you started, but you might wish you had become a geologist, because the field trips sure seem like a lot of fun.

If you're over 30, you've lived through the period during which extinction of the dinosaurs by catastrophic means was debated and explained. At first Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, were ridiculed for their explanation of what happened at the Cretaceous/Tertiary or K/T boundary.

Walter's book explains the chronology of events in a very readable fashion -- much less academic than the style of Stephen Gould and others. Its a story that tells how father and son found a way to work together, despite very different professions. It also shows how different disciplines worked together, across borders and countries.

What's surprising is how quickly evidence began to accumulate to support the Alvarez' theory. And its interesting to see where they might have been sidetracked or made critical mistakes, were it not for good scientific practice

T.rex and the Crate of Doom written by Waler Alvarez is a book about what occured around 65 million years ago on earth. Yes, the Chicxulub crater off the North coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

As it seems, the disciplines of geology and paleontology are the are the Earth historians. Like you or I reading a paper for the news, geologists and paleontologists read the fossil recond in the rocks. By observing, measuring, and interpreting the information held fast through the eons of time, the earth's history can been seen and understood.

There are two camps in these disciplins the camp of gradualism where everything takes times... sometimes an enormous length of time, then there are those of the camp catastrophism, something awful happen like a comet of meteor crashing into the earth. Well, this book falls mainly into the latter camp as the work on the K-T layer (Cretaecous-Tertiary) Iridium was found and the cause soon revealed that it came from an extraterrestrial source.

To be realistic, one must use both camps to come up with the true answer.

This book has seven chapters: Armageddon, ExLibro Lapidum Historia Mundi, Gradualist versus Catastrophist,
Iridum, The Search for the Impact Site, The Crater of Doom, and The World after Chicxulub. Each of these chapters bring the read more information on how science, if applied correctly can render an answer to some nagging questions.

This book tell about what happens when a meteor the size of Mt. Everest crashes into the earth and the consequenses that follow. As the author states, "The hugh cloud of vaporized rock generated at ground zero was driven outward by its own heat and pressure in a colossal fireball." Mexican geologists found the Chicxulub crater back in the 1950's, but the general knowledge of Chicxulub didn't become common knowledge until 1991. As more and more evidence becames available, the extinction of the mosters of the Mesozoic is starting to favor the catastrophist theory... but we can only guess, but an intelligent guess is better than not knowing.

This book was a fast read and the narrative flowed freely just like reading a detective story and all of the pieces of the mystery come together. This book has a little chemistry and physics in it so I believe that this show be read by age 16 and up. All in all, the is an excellent book and a fascinating story unfolds with some of the best firsthand paleontological science unraveling the mystries of that great extinction 65 millions years ago.

Nevertheless, this is a chilling reminder of the fragility of the biosphere, which is under a constant threat from asteroids, meteorites, bolides and comets.

It's interesting to see that this book is now being used as a text in high school and even junior high school science classes. I had a great laugh from the reaction of a young reader who wrote that it was "boring" and that "Innocent eight graders shouldn't have to read this stuff"!

Ah, yes. Innocence. But 14-year-olds aside, this is a fascinating and delightful story of scientific discovery and triumph second to none. It can be compared to James D. Watson's The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, both in terms of the importance of the discovery and for bringing to the reader some of the excitement and adventure of the quest. It is not, however, as the title might imply, the reading equivalent of watching a Stephen Spielberg movie! And perhaps we can be thankful for that.

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom is the story of one of the great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. Prior to Alvarez's work, it was not known what had caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Volcanism, disease, climate change, etc., were put forward as possibilities. But in1970 Alvarez began to believe that a large meteor or a comet had struck the earth with enormous force causing the extinctions. But how to prove it? At first it wasn't even imagined how a meteor could bring about such a catastrophe; but gradually it was seen that the debris thrown into the atmosphere by the force of impact would encircle the earth and block out the rays of the sun for months or even years at a time, thereby killing off plants both on the land and in the sea, thereby collapsing the food chain and starving the dinosaurs and most other creatures.

This was the breakthrough idea, and an exciting idea it was. Of course there was great resistance, as there always is in science when established opinions are threatened, and Alvarez and his team of scientists had to fight mightily against the orthodoxy of uniformitarianism which had held sway in geology and paleontology since the time of Charles Lyell. It wasn't until twelve years later in 1992 that Alvarez's theory finally found general acceptance in the scientific community.

One of Alvarez's purposes in this book is to show a general readership how scientific discoveries are made and confirmed. His tone is generous and he goes out of his way (unlike Watson in The Double Helix) to give credit to everyone involved. He makes it clear that the work was a shared enterprise. One thing that stood out in my mind was the central contribution from Alverez's father, Luis, a physicist who unfortunately died before the theory could be confirmed.

Alvarez does however allow himself an occasional sarcasm vis-a-vis the old order. Characterizing the "conventional geologic opinion" on the formation of craters like the Meteor Crater in Arizona as due to "mysterious explosions that occurred at random times and places for no evident reason," he appends this observation: "In retrospect this causeless mechanism...is indistinguishable from magic, but at the time many geologists considered it preferable to catastrophic impacts." (p 76)

Science is especially subject to the braking effect of established opinion because it is extremely difficult for anybody to allow that the established beliefs of their entire professional career can suddenly be overturned. All your life you believed one thing and one day you wake up and some whippersnapper has overturned the entire edifice! That is hard to take, and so entrenched opinion wars against new discovery. But that is as it should be since extraordinary claims do indeed require extraordinary proof.

Therefore, just as "the course of true love never did run smooth" (Shakespeare), so it is with science. Alvarez recounts an early misdirection in the quest when it was thought that they had found plutonium-244 in the KT boundary clay, possibly indicating a nearby supernova explosion 65 million years ago. He and Frank Asaro took their discovery to Earl Hyde, a nuclear chemist who listened patiently to the details and then said, "Do it all over again." This was very good advice because when they did it all over again they found they had erred: there was no plutonium-244 in the clay samples! (p. 74)

After reading this book we are left with an intriguing question: what was the role of volcanism, not only in the KT extinction but in the Permian-Triassic as well? Alvarez hints that there must be more than coincidence involved in the fact that during both extinctions there is indisputable evidence of vast lava flows. Does a truly monstrous impact somehow trigger volcanic eruptions? An "intriguing mystery" is what Alvarez calls it. (pp. 143-144)

This book should be read in conjunction with David M. Raup's The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science which covers some of the same ground (especially the fight against established opinion) while claiming a 26-million year periodicity for impact extinctions caused by Oort Cloud perturbations from a hypothetical companion star, dubbed "Nemesis."

Probably the most investigated mass extinction of the five major events known to have occurred has been the KT boundary event. This is probably because the dinosaur, especially T. Rex--as notice how much the dino named Sue fetched at auction--has captured the popular imagination more than any other animal. It was also the demise of these animals that openned up a world of opportunity for mammals, among which our own species is numbered. We therefore have a vested interest in, a sense of ownership of that catastrophic event as of no other. The notion of an astroid impact as the bringer of the end to the "terrible lizards" is also almost Biblical in proportion. It grabs the imagination. Certainly it has grabbed the media, as several TV programs and at least two movies about astroid impacts have been produced since the introduction of the theory advanced by the Alvarez, father and son. This book is a well written account by Walter Alvarez of the discovery of the clues to that event, of the gradual developement of the theory by many contributors, and of the defense of the theory before the scientific community. In fact the book is a good demonstration of the rigour with which new theories are challenged and defended and of the scientific process itself. It is also a landmark episode of the multidisciplinary approach to research and the growing dialogue between scientists from different fields. (For an opposing theory, also in itself compelling, see Evolution Catastrophies by Courtillot, or click on my name for my review of it. For a more thorough account of the prevailing theories of the KT and other extinctions see End of the Dinosaurs by Frankel or the review of it under my name).

Alvarez mixes Scientific Method, paleontology, the difficulties in getting a new idea considered with an adventure story. Especially noteworthy is how Alvarez gives lots of credit to the people who contributed with advancing this theory. The reading level seems geared towards mid- to older teens. I hope to use this book in the Earth Science class I teach.

Although there are many questions that still remain about the extinction of the dinosaurs, this book does a very good job in detailing the work involved with finding the impact crater that hit 65 million years ago. This is one of the few science books that go into detail about the dead ends of the scientific quest not just the positive finds.

T. Rex is two books masquerading as one. On the surface it is about Walter Alvarez' theory of meteor impact and how he believes that it is the cause of the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period that marked the end of dinosaurs. It is in this way that the book starts, and describes the theorized events in lucid detail. The remainder of the book is of another kind, and that is the hidden treasure here. This book is a story of personal inquiry and uncertainty, of conflict between father and son resolved through conjoint quest, of the gathering of knowlege by many people with unrelated agendas to formulate and reinforce this revolutionary theory. It is a story of how science really works, how ideas are formed, challenged, reformed, and grow to be accepted. Though not what the title promises, this second book is a delight for anyone with an interest in what living the life of science is really like. It makes this book better than a good science read, and much more personal. Highly recommended.

Alvarez has done what few grass roots scientists can, which is provide an intelligent and complete argument that is easily palatable by the layperson. All this and at the same time, probably do much to convince young people that science can be cool, fun, and fascinating. Admittedly the recent sexiness of the whole dinosaur epoch adds to the momentum of uncovering the answers to one of the gretatest bio-historical questions of all time. However the book has an enjoyable amount of internal momentum, which is not compromised by the occasional necessary tangential forays into scientific proof and annoying things like that. This is a must read for any inquiring mind of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries