Notes

319 pages : illustrations Contents: 1. The sixth extinction -- 2. The mastodon's molars -- 3. The original penguin -- 4. The luck of the ammonites -- 5. Welcome to the Anthropocene -- 6. The sea around us -- 7. Dropping acid -- 8. The forest and the trees -- 9. Islands on dry land -- 10. The new Pangaea -- 11. The rhino gets an ultrasound -- 12. The madness gene -- 13. The thing with feathers Summary: Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. But this time around, the cataclysm is us... The author draws on the work of scores of researchers in a half-dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the Great Auk and the Sumatran rhino... Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as a concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in French Revolutionary Paris through to the present day