When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time

... Also known as ‘The Great Dying’. And, no, that honorific is not melodramatic. It’s an event where 90 – 95% of life went extinct. Contrast with that of the more famous K-Pg Extinction (the Cretaceous Event that destroyed the non-avian dinosaurs) that killed off about 50%, the Permian E.Event is the ‘Terminator’ of disasters.And Michael J.Benton does a very good job of explaining it in terms that anyone can understand. He doesn’t write too seriously either. Similar to Steve Brusatte’s “The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs” we get some anecdotes among all the science-y stuff (though not as much) and I loved coming across those nerdy-jokes that pop up now and again. “Geochemists said the ‘shocked quartz’ was not really shocked at all – not even mildly surprised.”… *hears the crickets*… well… I chuckled, at least.However, if you, like me, you came to this book specifically because you wanted to learn about the Permian Extinction Event (as opposed to general interest) the book doesn’t get to it until literally half-way through the book. The first 180ish pages are dedicated to the history of scientists/palaeontologists/geologist and their theories of extinction events, the reactions, and the history of the discoveries relating to Permian and Triassic fossils. There is also good amount of time spent on discussing the K-Pg Extinction and its relevance to getting minds thinking about other Extinction Events. Don’t get me wrong, I found them interesting and I didn’t get bored while reading about them and I understand why this perhaps needed to be padded out to make it a book of reasonable length. Just be aware of this going in.

This book primarily focusses on the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, currently considered the worst extinction event in Earth's history. It marked the end of the Palaeozoic and beginning of the Mesozoic Eras, approximately 250 million years ago. There is little evidence of an extra-terrestrial cause for this event, and so it is likely that environmental and geological changes were the main cause of the event. It is thus of interest to our current environment.The book begins with a discussion of how the Permian period was formally defined, and there is a good history of catastrophism versus gradualism in the history of geology. It moves on on to describe the key palaeontological data covering the period of the extinction. There is then speculation of the possible causes of the extinction event.Overall, this is an excellent popular science book on a subject that is highly relevant to us It is also a rapidly changing area, as new data is found and new techniques are developed. Highly recommended.

This excellent book is clearly written and easy to understand. It shows how close to utter disaster the whole of life came to complete extinction! A brilliant book dealing so well with a difficult subject. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Earth's history. It is a very good read as well.

A wonderful book written by someone who knows their subject intimately but aimed at readers with a more than passing interest.

Did not dislike anything about it. Well written by an expert who knows his subject.