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thehabro's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
2.5
Would a low grade mean this book is poorly written, full of strange and sometimes contradictory statements? Yes, I would suggest that.
shanaqui's review
informative
slow-paced
2.0
Vanished Ocean is basically the life and times of the Tethys Ocean, touching on geology, biology/evolution, and a few snippets of personal biography. Stow tries to discuss the Tethys and how it looked, where it was, the formation and destruction processes that made and unmade it, plus the creatures that lived within it, and the evidence for all those assertions.
It's one of the few books I've read that denies that the dinosaurs were made extinct by the meteorite that crashed and formed the Chixulub crater, instead looking to the Deccan traps and a longer, slower extinction that was already underway before the impact (if there even was one) occurred. He points out that iridium and shocked quartz can have terrestrial origins, for example. I've honestly no idea how to assess this, since it isn't my field.
It's kind of slow, and it isn't helped by his constantly stopping to talk about asides and anecdotes. The whole attempted kidnapping episode added nothing, for example, other than "oooh this area of the world is daaangerous and exotic". It's partly the fact that isn't my field that made it slow, of course, but still -- I can get very into all kinds of books that aren't my field, and love them (Richard Fortey had me riveted with more than one of his books).
It's one of the few books I've read that denies that the dinosaurs were made extinct by the meteorite that crashed and formed the Chixulub crater, instead looking to the Deccan traps and a longer, slower extinction that was already underway before the impact (if there even was one) occurred. He points out that iridium and shocked quartz can have terrestrial origins, for example. I've honestly no idea how to assess this, since it isn't my field.
It's kind of slow, and it isn't helped by his constantly stopping to talk about asides and anecdotes. The whole attempted kidnapping episode added nothing, for example, other than "oooh this area of the world is daaangerous and exotic". It's partly the fact that isn't my field that made it slow, of course, but still -- I can get very into all kinds of books that aren't my field, and love them (Richard Fortey had me riveted with more than one of his books).
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