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Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: The Causes of Mass Extinctions

Tony Hallam, 2004, Oxford University Press, New York, 274 p. (Hardcover, US $24.95) ISBN: 0-19-852497-8.

Dateline Yucatan: Masters of the Mesozoic Massacred! Dino Demise! Massive Meteor Mayhem! Are We Next?!

Pretty much anyone who watches television, reads popular print articles, or surfs the web for a school project "knows" a gigantic meteorite struck Earth 65 million years ago and killed off all the dinosaurs. Some people even "know" that another meteor could strike Earth in the future, and that our own species would be among its victims. Quick! Make a movie—or two or three! E-mail your Congressional Representative: Protect Planet Earth!

Sensationalism sells, whether it is in movies, newspapers, politics, or your Historical Geology lecture. Don't get me wrong—I'm all for (almost) anything that will interest the general public, including my students, in science. The abysmal lack of understanding of the nature of science is all too evident among our neighbors, students, and politicians. If I can find that one hook to draw people into a discussion of how scientists "know" about Earth's past, I'm going to grab it. The problem, of course, is when all you get is the hook; the sexy science; the mile-wide-and-an-inch-deep science; the cool hypothesis-of-the-moment science. When it comes to extinction, alas, drama often trumps depth, and dinosaurs overshadow diatoms. Fortunately, there are exceptions ...

Tony Hallam's Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities is a book for those willing to go . . . [Full Text of this Article]

DALE A. SPRINGER¹

¹ Department of Geography and Geosciences Bloomsburg University 400 E. 2^nd Street Bloomsburg, PA 17815