![]() She effectively demonstrates the complexity and interdependence of various ecosystems, and the appendix is an extra treat-in it, Black explains how scientists know as much as they do about the behavior and physiology of species alive millions of years ago, and identifies where she used literary license to set a scene. Black avoids the pitfall of overdramatizing, instead bringing the global disaster to life in elegant prose, imagining, for example, the actions of a young male Edmontosaurus, an 18-foot-long herbivore, and a 25-foot-long armored Ankylosaurus as the world around them changes. Black begins by exploring how creatures living in the “Hell Creek Formation beds of central Montana and the Dakotas” experienced that day, imagining the zone from the time of the impact, and the first day (the sun is “blocked by the choking smoke”), month (the area is “a skeleton of what it once was), year (forests are “skeletal), and century following. Dinosaurs The fiery end of the dinosaurs kicked off the golden age of mammals It was a normal day in the Cretaceousthen an asteroid hit the planet. Riley Black has been heralded as ‘one of our premier gifted young science writers’ and is the critically acclaimed author of Skeleton Keys, My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, When Dinosaurs Ruled and Deep Time.Her work has appeared in Science, The New York Times, Nature, Smithsonian and more. ![]() “The worst single day in the history of life on Earth” came 66 million years ago when a space rock slammed into Earth and subsequently wiped out about 75% of living species, according to journalist Black ( Skeleton Keys) in this impressive account. Riley Black is one of the worlds premier writers on all things fossiliferous. ![]()
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