Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History

Rating:
Summary: Readable paleontology
Review: "It's not as glamorous as you think," is the underlying theme in Peter Ward's book Gorgon. Ward describes the efforts to understand what caused the Permian-Triassic (P/T) extinction that occurred 250 Million years ago and brought about the demise of over 90% of the species of plant and animal life on earth. The reader is taken on several trips to the Karoo, a semi-arid plateau in the southwest of South Africa to try and tease answers out of the strata.
In addition to the physical hardships provided by a harsh climate, taxing work, and poisonous snakes, the shadow of the upheaval brought about by the end of apartheid makes the tedious search for fossils life threatening at times.
Gorgon is short for gorgonopsian, a mammal-like reptile that Ward describes as the T.rex of the Permian era. Named for the three hideous sisters in Greek mythology, the gorgon was about 10 feet long with the body of a lizard and a huge head with teeth that resemble those of a saber-toothed tiger, obviously adapted for capturing and shredding animals.
Most interesting to me were the various methods used to determine the character of the extinction, a key to learning its cause. What was the time span of the extinction: was it sudden, like the K/T event caused by a comet, or, was there a slow die off over millions of years? No single clue could provide all the answers and several methods were discussed that required the scientists become intimate with the layers of rock that, 250 Million years ago, were the surface of the earth. Ward gave understandable descriptions of paleostratigraphy, the study of the makeup of each stratum; isotopic perturbation, the analysis of the relative carbon content of each stratum; and magnetostratigraphy; use of the earth's periodic geomagnetic reversal to isolate a time frame for each stratum.
Ward came to the P/T extinction project with a great deal of experience; he had participated in the work done throughout the 1980s to prove the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) extinction that occurred about 65 Million years ago. This sudden extinction, the result of a comet striking the earth, raised questions about the causes of other extinctions and led Ward to delve into the P/T event.
The unbroken chain of life; that is what makes the paleontology so interesting. In his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson congratulates the reader for "making it here," for being fortunate enough to have been part of an unbroken lineage that began... well, at the beginning. Ward's book brings the thought back time and again by showing that even through the biggest catastrophe in history, some of our more tenacious, more fortunate relatives survived.

Rating:
Summary: excellent, but read his book on mammoths
Review: "It's not as glamorous as you think," is the underlying theme in Peter Ward's book Gorgon. Ward describes the efforts to understand what caused the Permian-Triassic (P/T) extinction that occurred 250 Million years ago and brought about the demise of over 90% of the species of plant and animal life on earth. The reader is taken on several trips to the Karoo, a semi-arid plateau in the southwest of South Africa to try and tease answers out of the strata.
In addition to the physical hardships provided by a harsh climate, taxing work, and poisonous snakes, the shadow of the upheaval brought about by the end of apartheid makes the tedious search for fossils life threatening at times.
Gorgon is short for gorgonopsian, a mammal-like reptile that Ward describes as the T.rex of the Permian era. Named for the three hideous sisters in Greek mythology, the gorgon was about 10 feet long with the body of a lizard and a huge head with teeth that resemble those of a saber-toothed tiger, obviously adapted for capturing and shredding animals.
Most interesting to me were the various methods used to determine the character of the extinction, a key to learning its cause. What was the time span of the extinction: was it sudden, like the K/T event caused by a comet, or, was there a slow die off over millions of years? No single clue could provide all the answers and several methods were discussed that required the scientists become intimate with the layers of rock that, 250 Million years ago, were the surface of the earth. Ward gave understandable descriptions of paleostratigraphy, the study of the makeup of each stratum; isotopic perturbation, the analysis of the relative carbon content of each stratum; and magnetostratigraphy; use of the earth's periodic geomagnetic reversal to isolate a time frame for each stratum.
Ward came to the P/T extinction project with a great deal of experience; he had participated in the work done throughout the 1980s to prove the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) extinction that occurred about 65 Million years ago. This sudden extinction, the result of a comet striking the earth, raised questions about the causes of other extinctions and led Ward to delve into the P/T event.
The unbroken chain of life; that is what makes the paleontology so interesting. In his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson congratulates the reader for "making it here," for being fortunate enough to have been part of an unbroken lineage that began... well, at the beginning. Ward's book brings the thought back time and again by showing that even through the biggest catastrophe in history, some of our more tenacious, more fortunate relatives survived.

Rating:
Summary: Readable paleontology
Review: "It's not as glamorous as you think," is the underlying theme in Peter Ward's book Gorgon. Ward describes the efforts to understand what caused the Permian-Triassic (P/T) extinction that occurred 250 Million years ago and brought about the demise of over 90% of the species of plant and animal life on earth. The reader is taken on several trips to the Karoo, a semi-arid plateau in the southwest of South Africa to try and tease answers out of the strata.
In addition to the physical hardships provided by a harsh climate, taxing work, and poisonous snakes, the shadow of the upheaval brought about by the end of apartheid makes the tedious search for fossils life threatening at times.
Gorgon is short for gorgonopsian, a mammal-like reptile that Ward describes as the T.rex of the Permian era. Named for the three hideous sisters in Greek mythology, the gorgon was about 10 feet long with the body of a lizard and a huge head with teeth that resemble those of a saber-toothed tiger, obviously adapted for capturing and shredding animals.
Most interesting to me were the various methods used to determine the character of the extinction, a key to learning its cause. What was the time span of the extinction: was it sudden, like the K/T event caused by a comet, or, was there a slow die off over millions of years? No single clue could provide all the answers and several methods were discussed that required the scientists become intimate with the layers of rock that, 250 Million years ago, were the surface of the earth. Ward gave understandable descriptions of paleostratigraphy, the study of the makeup of each stratum; isotopic perturbation, the analysis of the relative carbon content of each stratum; and magnetostratigraphy; use of the earth's periodic geomagnetic reversal to isolate a time frame for each stratum.
Ward came to the P/T extinction project with a great deal of experience; he had participated in the work done throughout the 1980s to prove the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) extinction that occurred about 65 Million years ago. This sudden extinction, the result of a comet striking the earth, raised questions about the causes of other extinctions and led Ward to delve into the P/T event.
The unbroken chain of life; that is what makes the paleontology so interesting. In his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson congratulates the reader for "making it here," for being fortunate enough to have been part of an unbroken lineage that began... well, at the beginning. Ward's book brings the thought back time and again by showing that even through the biggest catastrophe in history, some of our more tenacious, more fortunate relatives survived.

Rating:
Summary: He suffered for his work. Now it's your turn!
Review: First, let's have a big groan for Viking's uninformed jacket copy editor, who in the photo credits calls the gorgonopsian on the front cover a "dinosaur." I trust they'll fix that for the paperback edition.

I enjoyed and reviewed Dr. Ward's book _Rare Earth_, so I know he is capable of producing rewarding science writing for the educated layman. But as I progressed through this book, I was a bit disappointed to realize that it was mostly about himself. His is an interesting story, but the actual science content of the book could be told in the space of an article in Discover magazine.

The writing is gratingly overwrought much of the time, and the intensely personal nature of some of it is discomfiting. He keeps going on about the taciturnity of his South African colleague Roger Smith, apparently not thinking that it might be a reaction to Ward's stereotypically American puppy-dog gregariousness. The purplish prose works effectively in the first few scenes of field work in the Karoo, though; when the extreme conditions call for descriptive passages to match.

As he and the reader slog on, the scientific data slowly accumulate. The crew is bedeviled by human error and bad luck, on top of the hostile conditions. For instance, after one grueling expedition is finally wrapped up, the rock samples are ruined in a lab accident, necessitating a return trip to the South African wilderness. But eventually enough dots are connected for Ward to venture a hypothesis about the nature of the Permian/Triassic extinction, and about mass extinctions in general.

So, does his evidence add up? You can skip most of the book and just read the last chapter, and judge for yourself. Or you can read the whole thing, and get an idea of the travails of field paleontology, a much more detailed idea than you ever might have wanted.

Rating:
Summary: Permian puzzle penetrated
Review: From the days of Jim Watson's expose of the travails of unravelling the structure of DNA, researchers have discovered personal accounts of research sell books. Ward, who has produced several excellent works on early life and extinctions, has joined the ranks of the "science as personal diary" writers. In this book, which is almost the final volume of a trilogy [The End of Evolution and Rivers in Time], he recounts the years of seeking answers to why nearly all life died 250 million years ago. The Permian Extinction was a sharp break in life's track, but its causes long eluded explanation. Ward became a nearly solitary pursuer for an answer. This account chronicles his quest.

There aren't many places left on the planet where Permian rocks may be found. One of the few, and perhaps the best, is the Great Karoo in South Africa. A near wasteland of barren valleys and stark hills, it's not a place many visit by choice. Even Ward, who should be inured to field research, complains bitterly throughout this account of the capricious nature of the place. There are sudden, intense storms, bitter cold when it should be summery heat, and some bugs. Ward's scientific reserve is cast off when he describes his encounters with African ticks. Harsh epithets scatter across the page. Science accounts rarely invoke the Amazon "inappropriate" rule, but this one may be the exception.

Although Ward finds the chase difficult, sometimes futile and of extended duration, he gathers his bits of information to construct a plausible scenario. The first clues are in the rocks. Upper Permian rock is typically grey or green. The overlying Triassic sediments are uniformly red. Why the distinction? Red implies two elements - iron and oxygen. Combined, they are the colour we associate with rust. There are also the patterns in the rocks to consider. Ward teams with Roger Smith. Smith has become the leading rock "reader" in the Karoo. He can tromp a hillside, declaiming about the ancient environment the sediments represent. From snow or rain-fed mountains, channel-cutting rivers once changed to torpid braided streams. Lush vegetation disappeared, to be replaced by simple plants - or none. The animal life, already known to have disappeared in the seas, is also largely missing. Why? More importantly to Ward, how fast did it disappear?

Ward, hopping back and forth between Africa and his home, begins teasing out an answer. Although some would like to credit another cometary disaster, such as helped wipe out the dinosaurs, the answer appears to be more local, if more intense. Ward concludes that a series of events, some unrelated, depleted the oxygen supply of the planet. The major cause appears to be a series of momentous volcanic eruptions in Siberia. Spewing immense quantities of lava accompanied by carbon dioxide and other gases, life's fundamental resource, oxygen, was smothered. With nothing to breathe, most life died. The one large species surviving appears to have been a high-altitude inhabitant, able to adapt to the depleted atmosphere.

Ward's account is a compelling read - even when he descends to cursing today's living creatures, animal and human alike. He's a dedicated scientist, even admitting to harbouring an "obsession" in his sub-title. This book might have enlarged on the science while diminishing the personal observations a bit, its message remains clear and valid. There is much to learn about past life in order to consider where ours might be threatened. The Permian Extinction may seem remote, but recent events in the Indian Ocean suggest a reprise remains a possibility. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Rating:
Summary: Adventure in the Karoo
Review: Gorgon is a book much as one expects from Peter Ward, a multi faceted examination of what it takes to be a paleontologist, of what approach answers questions in paleontology, of what the evidence tells us, all mixed with the adventure of a life lived often in the field in a foreign culture. The book is therefore an excellent introduction for the young person with an interest in geology, earth history, or paleontology as a career, or for the individual of whatever age who is interested in the subject but has difficulty with the dry facts of science as generally presented in books and journals on the topic.

While I personally like to take my information "straight up" like those he composes with co-author Donald Brownlee, and without the biographical admixture of adventure, I did find the sociological information about South Africa very enlightening and enjoyed it. I am also once agained reconfirmed in my belief that the life of a field geologist is a rigorous one. More than anything, I now realize how very unsuited I would have been as either a geologist or a paleontologist. I enjoy having worked on my degree in geology, but I really am an armchair enthusiast.

I found the author's late realization of the clues inherent to the red beds surprising, since their significance occurred to me almost immediately. This may possibly be because I live in the once iron rich state of Minnesota and the oxidation of iron in solution in the oceans that formed those beds was made quite clear in my own geology classes.

Among the findings that the author offered at the conclusion of the book, several were of interest to me. He suggests that the common finds of Lystrosaur may not be due to simple accident of preservation but reflect the fact that they were a common post Permian animal. Perhaps the Lystrosaurs had made it successfully through the bottleneck to increase in numbers at the expense of those who failed to survive whatever catastrophe had occurred.

The author also mentions that this animal had been known as a high altitude creature, successful where others were not by virtue of its specialized lungs. This led him to wonder if the common finding the the Lystrosaur might reflect a depletion of oxygen level and a movement of the animal into lower altitudes as competitors died out. He also opines the likelihood that the dinosaur and its relatives the birds became successful by virtue of similar lung changes accommodating lower oxygen levels early on, a very insightful proposal.

The notion that all these changes might have set life on a totally different pathway, one that ultimately led to us, is also quite clever. I know that others have suggested atmospheric oxygen content changes as an explanation for the size increase in animal life during the Jurassic, but this was suggested as an increase in content rather a decrease. Another decline in oxygen level, this time to our current level of 21%, has been proposed for the extinction of the megafauna of the Pleistocene. Clearly any major change in the proportion of atmospheric gases is going to effect any life that has accommodated itself to a narrowly defined set of conditions. Animals that are more tolerant of deprivation or have a wider tolerance for variation will out compete those that don't. Given the pressures to which our present atmosphere is subject, whether by natural climate change or the effects of green house gases from fossel fuels and ozone depleters, it may not be too long before anaerobes come into their own again!

Rating:
Summary: Not about the gorgonopsians
Review: I bought this book hoping to learn more about the gorgonopsians and other mammal-like reptiles. No such luck. This book contains very little about the mammal-like reptiles. In fact, it is almost entirely free of scientific facts.

It is about Peter Ward's experiences working in the Karoo desert of South Africa in the 1990s and early 2000s. During the 1980s, he had worked on the KT boundary, and the conclusion that the KT mass extinction was caused by an asteroid hit caused him to wonder whether the Permian/Triassic mass extinction also result from some sort of catastrophe. That was the ostensible purpose of the fieldwork. But this book is really about paleontological fieldwork, and the thoughts and emotions that go through a paleontologists mind as he struggles to find fossils in a very harsh and forbidding environment. Ward is a good writer, and the book is very readable, it's just that I would not have bought it if I'd known it was just a journal or diary written during the author's Karoo field work.

The last few chapters have a rushed discussion of the current opinions about the P/T mass extinction, but that problem has apparently never been solved. The author notes that most of the hypotheses have been falsified, and engages in some unconvincing speculation that lower oxygen levels caused the extinction. But the real point of the book is just to give the reader a feel for the day-to-day emotions of paleontological fieldwork, and on that level it succeeds.

Rating:
Summary: excellent, but read his book on mammoths
Review: I like this book, this coming from a chemistry professor who dreamed of being a paleontologist/archaeologist. Had I not read his earler book "The Call of Distant Mammoths", I could've given this 5 stars. I liked the interweaving of personal experience with scientific story, but the science story became lost now and then, and not as clear a case is made here than in the earlier book. As a scientist, I found the isotopes conjectures needed more supporting discussion than was provided. Overall, I think the author should have minimized and compartmentalized his own personal history and experiences to be a much more minor portion, since this became too large a distraction from the scientiifc conclusions.

Rating:
Summary: I was obsessed with finishing this book
Review: I stayed up late last night finishing it... I was dying to figure out how the Permian extinction happened. More science books ought to be written like this, exploring the evidence, letting the reader figure out the theory as the scientist figured it out. Well worth any science lover's time.

Rating:
Summary: Nice packaging, content not so great
Review: Like David Read (see review September 20, 2004) I rather thought that this book would be about the Gorgons and other creatures of that period in Earth's history. However, caveat emptor, I guess.

Nonetheless, the book gets off to an enthusiastic start and, once you have realised what the thrust of it is, it's actually is quite compelling reading for quite a large part. He paints a vivid picture of the bleakness of the South African Karoo and the trials and tribulations of fossil hunting. As someone who did Geology at university, specialising in palaeontology, I had a
few wry grins whilst reading his narrative.

However, the book really starts going off the boil somewhere in the second half, and really fizzles out by the end. It's not that there are no conclusions drawn, but the early pace of the
book just dies. It seems to me that this may be for several reasons.

Firstly, one can't help feeling that he approached the whole subject of the Permian extinction in the expectation that
is would be explained by a single catastrophic event as in the case of the K/T extinction. After all, he considers the scale of the Permian extinction to be greater than that of the later one. When this proved not to be the case, he seems to have been rather disappointed. It seems to me that a combination of this realisation, drudgery in the Karoo over more than a decade, a failure to be the main man who "came up with the solution" to the extinction, and just simply getting older (happens to all of us), blunted his enthusiasm for the whole thing. By the end the feeling one gets its that he isn't really all that bothered about it all, and just finished the book because, having started it, it had to be completed.

All rather a pity really, given that he is quite capable of writing in a captivating way when he puts his mind to it. For those who haven't done so, I recommend reading "Rare Earth" which
he wrote together with Donald Brownlee.

I wans't sure whther to give this a 3 or 4 start rating - I would say 4 for readability, but 3 for having a misleading title.