Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind

by Mary Gribbin and John Gribbin

Book Overview

Doomday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind An engaging and ominous history of how asteroid and comet collisions with the Earth have shaped the course of human events--and the dangers that may lie ahead. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312143354
• ISBN13: 9780312143350
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A Good Book on the Cosmic Bombardment

John and Mary Gribbin has written an interesting work entitled "Fire On Earth," where the authors discussed the cosmic hazards and also focuses on the extinctions, Tunguska event, as well the works of Clube and Napier on "Cosmic Winters" and the work of Muller on "Nemesis" theory. This book contains roughly 260 pages and ten chapters. From this book, I was certainly interested in the authors' discussion of the works of Clube and Napier in the chapter entitled "Cosmic Winters" and Muller's work briefly in the chapter entitled "Cycles of Doom." They also bring in a discussion of Oort clouds where at one point they stated that "a disturbance of the Opik-Oort cloud leads...to an increased chance of cometary collisions with the inner planets, probably producing repeated impacts on Earth" (p. 169), which is important to know. In the end, the authors attempted the proposal of a SpaceWatch project to provide a protection against cosmic impacts and urged the scientific community to take cosmic threat seriously. Overall, this book is not filled with technicality and too scientific for such layperson. It is in fact subjective written and reads almost like a popular science book. Granted, some errors were discovered, but the authors have compiled and brought the data from the most important scientific works, including Clube's The Cosmic Serpent and The Cosmic Winter as well Catastrophes and Evolution: Astronomical Foundations to which I also recommend. In my opinion, it's a good book on the subject.

The Best Book Yet About Impacts & Extinctions

This is an excellent book on the topic of impacts and extinctions; the Gribbins especially deserve high praise for correcting one bit of scientific misinformation about terrestrial impact craters and ejecta. That is, that tektites--small, natural glassy objects are not formed on the Earth! It was long believed that tektites were the result of terrestrial impacts (an odd belief since the stone contain almost no water, but real impact glasses have lots of water, etc.). The Gribbens rightfully note that tektites are almost certainly extraterrestrial ejecta (and the Moon being a primary source). Ergo impact craters on Earth, where nickel/iron are not found and where pure glass material is found (i.e., Libyan Desert Glass, Darwin Glass, etc.), may really be the result of lunar glass meteorites impacting the Earth. That is, giant volcanic obsidian (silicic) domes ejected from the Moon during massive volcanic eruptions which crash to Earth! So, we don't have to look to the asteroid belt for mass extinctions--tektite showers may be the real culprits behind the extinctions! Kudos to the authors for penning a fascinating book which is clear, honest and not caught up entirely in today's impact mania catastrophism.