Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction: The Late Paleozoic Ice Age World

As someone who loves the great plants and animals that God created, this book takes you to the time when most of the coal we used today was produced, for I went on digs when I was a Geology student at Auburn in 1986 and dug up such fossils of these magnificent giant trees of the Carboniferous period. The animals that lived during that time, from dog sized scorpions to alligator sized centipedes and eagle sized dragonflies. I hope God allows me the opportunity to see these creatures as they lived in the next life. A great book on this period in Earths history!!

First off this book is not a casual read. If one has some basic knowledge of the evolution and changes to the earth's environment and geology through time as well as some background in the evolution of life, the book may be easier to follow. This is not meant as a criticism but rather a compliment to emphasize the scholarly nature of the book. George McGhee describes the earth's environment, flora and fauna from the late Devonian, through the Carboniferous and Permian, and into the early Triassic periods spanning roughly 120 million years. This is done in an attempt to understand and explain the massive Permnian extinction. What I appreciated most was that the author was willing to explore alternative hypotheses in consideration of the geological and biological events that took place over this time period. One must keep in mind that the ideas being put forth are based on geochemical analysis and the fossil record. In the end however, the reason(s) for the Permian extinction are still under debate. McGhee leans heavily toward, and provides a strong case, that massive volcanic activity set off a chain of events that lead to the extinction. He did this in a very compelling fashion. The other value of this book is that it is extensively referenced, providing a wealth of subsequent reading on this topic.Perhaps the only criticism I have is that McGhee largely ignores the contribution of phtytoplankton to atmospheric oxygen levels. Today they contribute upwards of 50% of O2 to the atmosphere The precipitous drop in atmospheric O2 at the end of the Permian may well have to do in part to loss of land plants and to the oxidation of methane released into the atmosphere through action of volcanic plumes rising through carbon rich deposits. However the subsequent acidification and heating of the oceans must have had a very significant effect on phtytoplankton and marine O2 production. It would be interesting to learn of any work done on this aspect of the extinction

This book is not for casual reading (well, unless you're already well-versed in this subject) and you would do yourself a favor to open a notepad in your computer and take notes as you read along. Don't lay in bed or sit in a comfortable couch when you read this: this book is meant to be read with an alert, attentive mind. That said, McGhee is one of those rare science authors that's able to communicate a large amount of information in a simplified manner, while at the same time not diluting it so much that it distorts the actual significance or meaning. His writing is methodical and he guides you through each idea without assuming anything about your knowledge. When he brings up information from a previous chapter, he will mention this and won't assume that you've memorized everything he's written. There are times this book reads like a mystery book, because McGhee always compares and contrasts evidence from various people about why things may have occurred. I am deadly serious when I say that he communicates a large amount of information. The difficulty is not in understanding the book, but in absorbing the vast amount of information. It may look intimidating, but if you read as carefully and methodically as the author presents the evidence, you'll see how McGhee *masterfully* weaves a coherent story and he makes sure that his reader understands. This book has convinced me to read his other books.So what is this book about? It's about the various glaciations that happened in the Late Paleozoic: Late Devonian, End-Devonian, Early Carboniferous, and End-Middle Permian. He talks about the biodiversity and ecological impact of each, possible triggers, evidence in favor of certain triggers and counter-evidence of triggers of glaciations, comparisons to more recent Cenozoic glaciation, he describes how the continents moved and formed, what sort of plants dominated and how they came to be, how the world of the Carboniferous looked and the type of animals that inhabited it, the evolutionary history of plants, the gigantism of Carboniferous animals and why they may have been that way. It's basically a book about the Paleozoic world, with a focus on ice ages and the Carboniferous period. If you're tired of reading about dinosaurs or the world of the Mesozoic, this book is for you. Don't get me wrong, I love dinosaurs as much as anyone, but there were millions of years of interesting things before dinosaurs were a thing and this book shows you just what those things were.If you love paleontology, there is no reason that this book should be absent from your collection. I've read Peter Brannen's "The Ends of the World", I've read Steve Brusatte's "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" - all of them fantastic and well-written, but I prefer this humble, seemingly overlooked book.

I've been reading books on evolution: The Evolution of Avians, The Evolution of Mammals, the Evolution of Insects (Bugs), etc. I wanted a book that took a specific era and tied everything that took place in that era together, a cross section rather than a vertical emphasis, if you would. This book fovuses on the Carboniferous and the Permian, leading up to the great Permian Extinction at the end of the Paleozoic (90% of living things die). The focus is on early plant forests, fish and amphibians and insects and not on flashy stuff like dinosaurs, but for all that, its a very intersting book. The writing is good and there are a lot of illustrations -- although the illustrations could be better. The book did just what I wanted, described the climate and techtonic movements and then showed how the various animal and plants co-evolved. I've enjoyed the book a lot.

The book is great.

Ice ages are caused by one small continent on the Equator, ice is caused by a maxi continent on the Pole. Ice ages may not actually be there in the record in the rocks, but this is just because they have been obliterated by later ice ages. One cool interval in a more recent 15 million year warm spell should really make it count as an ice age. And this ice tinted view can then be extrapolated magically back to the previous epoch under discussion. McGhee’s approach to each section is to give potted “Just So” stories and poor diagrams about plants and creatures with walk on parts from different eras, a long list of examples and geological ages and tables, and then decide on more ice. If the reader has kept up they have done better than me I am afraid to say.Just to give one counter factual, the current permanent ice in Antarctica is generally attributed to it being one small continent at the pole, cut off from warmer climes since Australia and South America drifted away.Read instead “The Evolution of Plants” by Willis and McElwain, especially Chapter 3 The Colonisation of Land and Chapter 4 The First Forests. This gives a clearer and more balanced view.

This is in essence a scientific description of life on Earth during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, when our first land-walking ancestors were living and evolving among the giant tropical forests that formed the coal deposits in our current world. This was an Ice age, with unusual cool weather, like we've had in the last few million years. It was an ice-age paradise, a super-oxigenated safe haven that fostered the appearance of the synapsids, the ancestors of the mammals and of many other extinct groups. Their evolution and their near demise - in the horrendous, catastrophic events at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago, that made the Earth into an almost unlivable poisonous hothouse - represent the highest drama in the history of our Earth. This event almost erased the previous 300 million years of animal evolution: It killed the paleozoic sea life, that had existed for more than 200 million years; on land, it weakened the synapsids so much that the Earth was nearly left free to the reptiles, and in particular the dinosaurs, which started a long 150 000 000 year nightmare for the mammals, which only ended with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. I enjoyed immensely reading this book, I learned a lot, but also felt heartbroken about the truly unbelievable cruelty an unthinking Nature is capable of.

No doubt about it, this book on the first couple of readings was, to put it bluntly, a slog. Once you've got all the scientific terms under your belt, it is a great read and educational in the extreme. It should be required reading for everyone concerned about climate changes...the portion covering the Permian extinction and especially the role of volcanism and the Siberian LIP in this event are at once horrifying and informative. A big plus is that most chapters have clear and concise summaries. This book is highly recommended!

Sehr gut geschrieben und informativ. Ausstattung in Ordnung.

Loved it