A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson [249]
18 “an important part of the planet's organic well-being.” Trefil, Meditations at 10,000 Feet, p. 181.
19 “the history of rocks and the history of life.” Science, “Inconstant Ancient Seas and Life's Path,” November 8, 2002, p. 1165.
20 “the whole earth suddenly made sense.” McPhee, Rising from the Plains, p. 158.
21 “a habit of appearing inconveniently . . .” Simpson, p. 115.
22 “many surface features that tectonics can't explain.” Scientific American, “Sculpting the Earth from Inside Out,” March 2001.
23 “Wegener never lived to see his ideas vindicated.” Kunzig, The Restless Sea, p. 51.
24 “a bright young fellow named Walter Alvarez . . .” Powell, Night Comes to the Cretaceous, p. 7.
CHAPTER 13 BANG!
1 “a lot of strangely deformed rock . . .” Raymond R. Anderson, Geological Society of America: GSA Special Paper 302, “The Manson Impact Structure: A Late Cretaceous Meteor Crater in the Iowa Subsurface,” Spring 1996.
2 “Virtually the whole town turned out . . .” Des Moines Register, June 30, 1979.
3 “Very occasionally we get people coming in and asking . . .” Anna Schlapkohl, interview by author, Manson, Iowa, June 18, 2001.
4 “G. K. Gilbert of Columbia University . . .” Lewis, Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 38.
5 “Gilbert conducted these experiments . . .” Powell, Night Comes to the Cretaceous, p. 37.
6 “only slightly more than a dozen of these things . . .” Transcript from BBC Horizon documentary “New Asteroid Danger,” p. 4, first transmitted March 18, 1999.
7 “He called them asteroids—Latin for ‘starlike . . .' ” Science News, “A Rocky Bicentennial,” July 28, 2001, pp. 61–63.
8 “it was finally tracked down in 2000 . . .” Ferris, Seeing in the Dark, p. 150.
9 “twenty-six thousand asteroids had been named and identified . . .” Science News, “A Rocky Bicentennial,” July 28, 2001, pp. 61–63.
10 “cruising at sixty-six thousand miles an hour . . .” Ferris, Seeing in the Dark, p. 147.
11 “all of which are capable of colliding . . .” Transcript from BBC Horizon documentary “New Asteroid Danger,” p. 5, first transmitted March 18, 1999.
12 “such near misses probably happen . . .” New Yorker, “Is This the End?” January 27, 1997, pp. 44–52.
13 “some thirty thousand metric tons of ‘cosmic spherules' . . .” Vernon, Beneath Our Feet, p. 191.
14 “Well, they were very charming . . .” Frank Asaro, telephone interview by author, March 10, 2002.
15 “an article in Popular Astronomy magazine . . .” Powell, Mysteries of Terra Firma, p. 184.
16 “the dinosaurs may have been dealt a death blow . . .” Peebles, Asteroids: A History, p. 170.
17 “an earlier event known as the Frasnian extinction.” Lewis, Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 107.
18 “They're more like stamp collectors . . .” Quoted by Officer and Page, Tales of the Earth, p. 142.
19 “even while conceding in a newspaper interview . . .” Boston Globe, “Dinosaur Extinction Theory Backed,” December 16, 1985.
20 “continued to believe that the extinction of the dinosaurs . . .” Peebles, p. 175.
21 “evaluate Manure Management Plans . . .” Iowa Department of Natural Resources Publication, Iowa Geology 1999: Number 24.
22 “Suddenly we were at the center of things . . .” Ray Anderson and Brian Witzke, interview by author, Iowa City, June 15, 2001.
23 “One of those moments came . . .” Boston Globe, “Dinosaur Extinction Theory Backed,” December 16, 1985.
24 “The formation had been found by Pemex . . .” Peebles, pp. 177–78; and Washington Post, “Incoming,” April 19, 1998.
25 “I remember harboring some strong initial doubts . . .” Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, p. 162.
26 “Jupiter will swallow these comets up . . .” Quoted by Peebles, p. 196.
27 “One fragment, known as Nucleus G . . .” Peebles, p. 202.
28 “Shoemaker was killed instantly . . .” Peebles, p. 204.
29 “nearly every standing thing would be flattened . . .” Anderson, Iowa Department of Natural Resources: Iowa Geology 1999, “Iowa's Mansion Impact Structure.”
30 “fleeing would mean ‘selecting a slow death over a quick one . . .' ” Lewis, Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 209.
31 “concluded that it affected