Fifteen thousand years ago, most of northern North America was covered with a continent-spanning glacier a half-mile or more thick. The ice reached south to the valleys of the present Ohio and Missouri rivers, and extended from coast to coast.
Articles with Extinction
Image by Cloudinary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo by Jasmin Sessler on Unsplash
Life will survive the mess, but will we?
Sunday evening. Jumping up and down on the contents of the huge rolling trash bin, trying to make room for a few more bags — of what? Wine bottles, junk-mail catalogs, computer-printouts of drafts of this column, a week’s worth of Boston Globes and the New York Sunday Times.
Artist's impression of asteroid impact • Donald E. Davis (Public Domain)
Apocalypse now?
I heard on the radio the other day that a “rocket scientist” had predicted — with the aid of mathematical equations and biblical references — the imminent end of the world.
Artist's conception of comet bombardment • NASA/JPL-Caltech
Cycle of destruction
Gershwin said it: I got rhythm. Let’s add to that: All God’s creatures got rhythm. Every bird in the air and fish in the sea got rhythm. There are daily rhythms: Roosters grow at sunrise and bats fly at dusk. There are annual rhythms: Ferns unfurl their fronds in the spring and trees go gaudy with color in the fall. And there are monthly rhythms: The moon raises tides in the sea and inspires periodic lunacy and romance.
Meteor Crater, Arizona • Photo by USGS/D. Roddy (Public Domain)
Did a meteorite destroy the dinosaurs?
The meteor was traveling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour when it collided with the earth. It was as big as a house, weighed a hundred thousand tons, and blasted a hole in the ground the size of downtown Boston.