Walter Alvarez and his team made one of the most astonishing scientific discoveries of the twentieth century--that an asteroid smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago, exterminating the dinosaurs. Alvarez had the first glimmer of that amazing insight when he noticed something odd in a rock outcrop in central Italy. Alvarez now returns to that rich terrain, this time to take the reader on an distant past. We encounter the volcanoes that formed the Seven Hills of Rome; the majestic limestone Apennine mountains that started to develop millions of years ago under water; the evidence that the Mediterranean Sea completely evaporated to a sunken desert, perhaps several times; and the proof that continental plates once overran one another to form telling, all major geologic episodes are as dramatic as the great impact that killed the dinosaurs, even when they happen over eons and without huge creatures to witness them.

Author: Walter Alvarez
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 12/01/2008
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 9.28h x 6.44w x 0.98d
ISBN: 9780393061857


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 01/14/2008 pg. 62
Publishers Weekly 05/26/2008 pg. 48
Library Journal 06/15/2008 pg. 88
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/2008 pg. 627
Booklist 07/01/2008 pg. 22
Scitech Book News 12/01/2008 pg. 56
Choice 06/01/2009

About the Author
Alvarez, Walter: - Walter Alvarez, professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley, received the Penrose Medal, the top honor in geology, and is the best-selling author of T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. He lives in Berkeley, California.