Title: The Editors Recommend.   
Subject(s): SCIENCE -- Book reviews; NIGHT Comes to the Cretaceous
(Book); SEARCH for the Giant Squid, The (Book); WHEN Things Start to
Think (Book)
Source: Scientific American, Mar99, Vol. 280 Issue 3, p109, 2p, 2c,
1bw
Abstract: Reviews a number of scientific books. `When Things Start to
Think,' by Neil Gershenfeld; `Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Dinosaur
Extinction and the Transformation of Modern Geology,' by James
Lawrence Powell; `The Search for the Giant Squid,' by Richard Ellis;
Others.
AN: 1548254
ISSN: 0036-8733
Note: Tucson-Pima Public Library subscribes to this magazine.
Database: MasterFILE Elite

Section: Reviews and Commentaries

THE EDITORS RECOMMEND

Night Comes To The Cretaceous:
Dinosaur Extinction And The
Transformation Of Modern Geology.
James Lawrence Powell. W. H. Freeman
and Company, New York, 1998 ($22.95).

In 1964 Glenn Jepsen, a paleontologist at Princeton University,
published an article listing 31 causes, ranging from plausible to
implausible, that had been proposed for the extinction of the
dinosaurs. Among them, fairly well down on the list, was "meteorites."
Since then, the case for meteorites--specifically an asteroid impact
on the earth 65 million years ago--has largely won the day. Powell, a
geologist who directs the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural
History, traces the impact of the impact theory from its introduction
in 1980 by physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, a geologist.
Powell lays out persuasively the evidence that has accumulated to give
force to the Alvarez theory. He also maintains that the impact theory
has transformed geology. Uniformitarianism--the doctrine that all past
geologic changes can be understood by studying only processes that can
be seen going on today--must now confront, he says, the "strong
evidence that major events in earth history are controlled by forces
from outside the earth."