Deze auteur is geen literair figuur, maar een hoogleraar paleomilieu. Zijn onderzoeksinteresses liggen op het gebied van sedimentologie, massa-extincties, paleontologie, mariene anoxie en bekkengeschiedenis.
Extinction has occurred throughout the history of life, and nearly all the species that have ever existed have now disappeared. In this Very Short Introduction, Paul B. Wignall looks at the causes and nature of extinction events, what makes a species vulnerable, and the debates in modern science of the role of climate and humans.
[Wignall] presents a sound examination of an 80-million-year span, which began nearly 260 million years ago, that is considered by scientists to have been the most extreme extinction event in Earth's history . . . . [A] great example of scientific sleuthing.--Publishers Weekly