T. Rex and the Crater of Doom

Sixty-five million years ago a gigantic comet or asteroid as big as Mount Everest slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, creating an explosion on impact equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. It produced a cloud of roiling debris that blackened the sky for months as well as other geologic disasters–and triggered the demise of Tyrannosaurus rex.

We know what happened largely because Walter Alvarez–synthesizing the findings of experts from a variety of scientific fields–has written a gripping story of the decades-long search for the cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction. Painstakingly assembling clues from the Italian Apennines and the depths of the Pacific and presenting them with the excitement of a great novel, T. rex and the Crater of Doom is a book of undeniable importance and irresistible appeal by a major figure in contemporary science.

“Engaging and witty. Read Alvarez for and excellent account of how scientists pose questions and seek to solve them.”–Scientific American

“First-rate…Alvarez provides the up-close tale of the comet or asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.”–San Francisco Chronicle