A Book by Riley Black

Part post-apocalyptic survival book, part scientific reconstruction of life in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black is an interesting look at what most likely happened on those final days of the Cretaceous Era. Sixty-Six million years ago, a huge asteroid (named Chicxulub) crashed into the Earth and started the chain-reaction that ultimately led to the rise of mammals as the predominant lifeforms on Earth. To get there, however, survivors had to endure post-impact heat pulses of nearly 500 degrees Fahrenheit, massive ecological collapses, earthquakes, volcanoes, molten glass hail, tsunamis, and finally massive cooling of tropical areas. It would be many years before Earth returned to temperatures that existed before the impact, but by then it was too late – all non-avian Dinosaurs were largely dead, and many other species were slowly fading away.

“Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanish seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life of Earth was as critical for us as it was for the Dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years. In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.”

Told, at times, from the points of view of the various animals that were affected by this Earth-shattering disaster, the book is an interesting and heart-breaking take on what could have happened during the moments leading up to and after the impact of the infamous asteroid. The Earth post-impact was a hellscape of unimaginable scope, with death and destruction at every turn. Riley Black does a amazing job of showing exactly how bad many scenarios would be, including an infra-red 500 degree heat blast that basically cooked the entire Earth. The fact that anything survived is honestly amazing. The author never anthropomorphizes the “characters”, but one gets to feeling pretty bummed when a dinosaur they have been reading about for a few pages gets violently dashed against some trees and left to die after a shockwave rolls through their home. The fact that such emotions were brought out in what is ostensibly a scientific hypothesis of sorts, is quite amazing and a testament to the author’s ability to weave a narrative from scholarly information.

I’ve been on a dinosaur kick as of late, because my mid-life crisis apparently involves getting back into the stuff I was into as a kid. This book really hit the same spot that documentaries like Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet did, and if this is indicative of the author’s typical output, I will be finding more of her books to read very soon. If you are wondering exactly how bad an asteroid strike to Earth could be, I’d recommend checking this out – it really opened my eyes as to how lucky we all are to even be here right now.