ASTRONOMY COURSE . Volume 8 - The K/Pg Event: The Impact That Changed the World: Asteroid, Global Crisis and the end of the dinosaurs - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

What really happened 66 million years ago, when the non-avian dinosaurs disappeared?

This book takes the reader on a scientific journey through one of the most important events in Earth's history: the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, also known as the K/Pg event or, in historical terminology, the K/T event.

Starting from the Cretaceous world, populated by dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, ammonites, primitive mammals, and evolving plants, the book reconstructs step by step the catastrophe unleashed by the Chicxulub impact, which occurred approximately 66 million years ago. The impact was not just a local explosion: it produced shock waves, ejecta, tsunamis, atmospheric darkening, global cooling, and a profound crisis in terrestrial and marine food chains.

The book does more than simply recount the end of the dinosaurs. It also shows how scientists constructed the evidence: the thin Gubbio clay layer, the iridium anomaly, foraminifera, shocked quartz, glassy spherules, tsunami deposits, and the buried Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán. The story of the K/Pg event thus becomes a concrete example of the scientific method: observations, hypotheses, verifications, debates, and consensus built on independent evidence.

Ample space is also dedicated to related topics: the role of the Deccan Traps, asteroids and comets, NEOs, meteorites as archives of the Solar System, the possible delivery of water and organic molecules to the early Earth, craters on the Moon and Mars, Tunguska, Chelyabinsk, Apophis, DART, and modern planetary defense.

The work also includes chapters dedicated to critical thinking, unconfirmed hypotheses like Nemesis, pseudoscientific narratives like Nibiru, and the depiction of asteroid impacts in disaster movies, from Deep Impact to Armageddon to Don't Look Up.

Intended for students, teachers, and enthusiasts of geology, astronomy, paleontology, and Earth sciences, the book combines popular text, educational images, diagrams, quick tests, lab activities, a glossary, and a bibliography.

A comprehensive journey to understand not only how the dinosaurs ended, but also how science reconstructs events that occurred millions of years ago by reading the traces left in rocks, fossils, and craters of the Solar System.

Strengths of the Book
Clear and progressive explanation of the K/Pg event.
Interdisciplinary approach: geology, astronomy, paleontology, chemistry, and biology.
Extensive use of educational images, diagrams, and infographics.
Quick tests and useful activities for students and teachers.
Recognized scientific sources: NASA, JPL, LPI, USGS, IUGS, Smithsonian, and peer-reviewed literature.
Accessible yet scientifically rigorous language.
Chapters dedicated to planetary defense and critical thinking.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.