Picture a world of dog-sized scorpions and millipedes as long as a car;
tropical rainforests with trees towering over 150 feet into the sky and
a giant polar continent five times larger than Antarctica. That world
was not imaginary; it was the earth more than 300 million years ago in
the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era. In Carboniferous Giants
and Mass Extinction, George R. McGhee Jr. explores that ancient world,
explaining its origins; its downfall in the end-Permian mass extinction,
the greatest biodiversity crisis to occur since the evolution of animal
life on Earth; and how its legacies still affect us today.
McGhee investigates the consequences of the Late Paleozoic ice age in
this comprehensive portrait of the effects of ancient climate change on
global ecology. Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction examines the
climatic conditions that allowed for the evolution of gigantic animals
and the formation of the largest tropical rainforests ever to exist,
which in time turned into the coal that made the industrial revolution
possible--and fuels the engine of contemporary anthropogenic climate
change. Exploring the strange and fascinating flora and fauna of the
Late Paleozoic ice age world, McGhee focuses his analysis on the forces
that brought this world to an abrupt and violent end. Synthesizing
decades of research and new discoveries, this comprehensive book
provides a wealth of insights into past and present extinction events
and climate change.
