EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Three fourths of all existing species, including dinosaurs, perished all of a sudden 65 million years ago. This massive extinction had never been taken into account as a serious event, since it had been assumed that if fossile remains of this period had been preserved, we would have verified a gradual evolutive process similar to the one that Darwin had proposed. A detective story of a scientific character solves the mystery of the dinosaurs and poses a disquieting question: Is it the best specimens or rather the luckiest ones, those who come to survive?

Kenneth J. Hsü, awarded with the Wollastan Medal in 1985, is an honorary member of the Geological Society of America as well as an honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Science, and a member of the Academy of Science of the United States. He currently is a professor at the ETH Geologisches Institute in Zürich.

(Extracted from the back cover)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Agradecimientos.

-Prefacio a la Edición Española.

-1: Una Cuestión de Aptitud.
-2: Mares Sin Fin, Árboles de Moras.
-3: Ninguna Discontinuidad en Gubbio.
-4: C-29-R.
-5: El Enigma de la Extinción.
-6: Un Testigo del Abismo.
-7: La Muerte Viene del Cielo.
-8: El Neutrón Detective.
-9: Y los Cielos Se Oscurecieron.
-10: Los Supervivientes Condenados.
-11: El Océano del Dr. Strangelove.
-12: Lluvia Ácida.
-13: La Carrera No Es de Velocidad.

-Índice alfabético.

OUR REVIEW

The enigma of the extinction of the dinosaurs has generated a remarkable interest for years, not only from a scientific point of view, but also at a popular level as well. The fact that they, who had come to be the lords of the planet, were to suffer such a massive annihilation, makes it unavoidable for us to consider whether the currently dominant species, the Human Being, runs a similar danger.

In this book, Hsü unfolds the mysterious disappearance of the great reptiles as well as the different hypotheses explaining it, while reflecting the controversy between the evolutionist theories and those in favor of a sudden cosmic catastrophe, all that in a literary style which is quite pleasant to the reader yet it does not lack the necessary scientific precision.