Amazing Science Book: The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

Author Steve Brusatte and his book

If you love dinosaurs and want to get a better handle on their evolution and demise, you need to read Steve Brusatte's New York Times best-selling book "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs ." If you follow this blog, you've seen some of my postings that were inspired from my reading of the book- including on the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Prehistoric birds and Pangea. In today's blog you'll read my 5 Star Review, and my friend Liz's review. You NEED to read this book. Read on>>> 

  The author, a young paleontologist, provides a lot of information in a story form, that covers his experiences with others, and highlights the rise and fall of the greatest beasts the Earth has ever seen. He goes over the timelines, and the millions of years it took to get to different points in evolution. He also provides info about a couple  of mass extinction events. One that involved high volcanic activity and the other, the famous asteroid that hit the Gulf of Mexico and scattered debris all over the world causing instant deaths of any living thing that wasn't in the ocean or living in a burrow, or otherwise protected. 

   I was so inspired by this book that I listened to a lecture on-line about the Cretaceous Period end time by the asteroid. BTW, the author also explains how that asteroid impact can be seen in layers of rock around the world as a thin layer. It's all pretty fascinating. 

MY FRIEND'S REVIEW:  My Friend Liz also read the book and here's her review: I finished “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs”. I really enjoyed it, thank you for suggesting it.
   What I enjoyed most about the book is that Brusatte uses a storyline format. He weaves the history of the dinosaurs as seen through his own career, making each discovery an exciting connection to another piece of the dinosaur puzzle. 
   Usually an academic will write with a highbrow narrative that leaves me uninterested in exploring further. 
    This book provided factual evidence as it was discovered in the field, connecting the geography with the paleontology, taking a more holistic view of a very distant past. It is also helpful to know which dinosaurs lived during which periods, so much of their growth and where they were on the food chain depended upon the meteorology happening on earth. Just fascinating!
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Publisher's Summary

A sweeping and groundbreaking history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists.

The dinosaurs. 66 million years ago, the Earth's most fearsome and spectacular creatures vanished. Today their extraordinary true story remains one of our planet's great mysteries.

In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.

Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers - themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period - into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs' peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth's history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a "sixth extinction".

Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research - which he calls "a new golden age of discovery" - and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.

An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs' epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.

©2018 Stephen Brusatte (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Fascinating Facts About the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ancestors

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Image caption T. rex  lived during the Cretaceous Period

I'm in the process of reading and enjoying an amazing science book called "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" by paleontologist Steve Brusatte. It's a NY Times Best seller, and that's totally understandable. Once I finish it, I'll review the book, but I wanted to take time and point out a big highlight for the "world's most popular dinosaur."

T-REX ANCESTORS -   I've learned that since I was a kid in the 1970s,paleontologists have been finding and cataloging what can be referred to as the T-Rex family of ancestors. Originally, millions of years before them, T-Rex ancestors were about 150 pounds, standing on 2 feet. As time went on they grew larger and more fierce. During the Jurassic Period, one relative called Allosaurus, was known as the "Butcher dinosaur."You've seen them depicted in the film "Jurassic Park." They grew as long as 33 feet long from head to tip of the tail and were vicious meat-eaters. There were quite a few tyrannosaurs ancestors, like the Yutyrannus,  Qianzhousaurus and Chilantisaurus, to name a few. The T-Rex's ancestor came from China.


WHAT WAS THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD? - Cretaceous Period, in geologic time, the last of the three periods of the Mesozoic Era. The Cretaceous began 145.0 million years ago and ended 66 million years ago; - it was identified by temperature and sea-level changes. It followed the Jurassic Period and was succeeded by the Paleogene Period (the first of the two periods into which the Tertiary Period was divided).

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

ABOUT THE "KING OF DINOSAURS"- Tyrannosaurus is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning "king" in Latin), Full grown, they were up to 42 feet long and weighed up to 7 or 8 tons. They typically lived 30 years and were vicious high-consuming meat-eaters. The T-Rex had tiny arms and pretty useless hands. All the T-Rex's power was its head, that spanned about 5 feet from snout to ear! That's as big as an average person!! It had eyes the size of grapefruits, and bony structures around the eyes. Paleontologists have more T-Rex fossils than any other, according to author Steve Brusatte. That's helped them determine T-Rex's had scaly skin with feather-like filaments sticking out of them!  (Of course, later, some dinosaurs developed into birds and those feathers became what they are today).


WHEN WERE T-REX'S PREVALENT ? From 68 to 66 million years ago and they lived in North America. They developed from their ancestors after Pangea (all the current continents previously sandwiched together) broke up. 

WHY DID THEY DISAPPEAR at 66 MILLION YEARS AGO?  That's when the giant asteroid hit the Earth and drastically changed the atmosphere, temperature, etc. The author says all but the flying dinosaurs were driven to extinction by that event and the mammals survived to thrive in cooler temperatures caused by the impact.

Hope you've enjoyed learning these snippets... I will write more, but encourage you
to buy and read the book.