Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Life in the Triassic by Nicholas Fraser

My review

The Triassic Period of the Mesozoic, the opening shot of the middle period of well-displayed Earthly life, is considered by many to have been a harsh, arid time of relatively low biodiversity. It came, after all, right after the worst mass extinction of all time, the End-Permian Event, which now appears to have been caused by a global thermal spike of possibly 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) above normal. The End-Permian oceans were acidic and extremely low in oxygen, atmospheric oxygen was depleted and high in greenhouse gases as well as sulfur dioxide and methane released by sulfagenic and methanogenic bacteria that thrived in the Earth's sick world ocean, and the land was ravaged by global drought, scouring winds, and depleted soils. End-Permian life was thin on the ground, barely clinging on. It is assumed by many that the Triassic world and its life were just more of the same. But as the author of DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS says, Triassic life and environmental conditions were no more monolithic than those of the bulk of any other period of Earth's Phanerozoic eon, and large tracts of Triassic land and sea left rich fossils of a diverse biota that we have only begun in the closing years of the 20th century and the opening years of the 21st to appreciate. As the world began to recover from the End-Permian Event, conifer forests re-established themselves across vast tracts of Pangaea, and herbs and shrubs followed suit. Oxygen levels soon began to rise, and as Pangaea began to break up, the world ocean was stirred and mixed with oxygen once more, killing off the green and purple bacteria that had poisoned the atmosphere with their excreted gases, and life once more began to fill Earth's seas. Consequently much of the Triassic saw an increasingly rich biota that included the very first dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterodactyls, and a host of new types of vascular plants, some of which would eventually give rise to plants bearing beautifully colored flowers (the conifers that came to populate the world in the late Carboniferous and Permian of course produced flowers, too, the seed-bearing structures we call pine cones and the like, but it wasn't until the Cretaceous that the delicate, beautiful flowers that we prize so much came into existence). The Triassic set the stage for the resurgence of post-Paleozoic life that ultimately culminated in the archosaurs, marine reptiles, birds, true mammals, pollinating insects, and elaborate new suites of plants of the Mesozoic, a fact reflected in the fossil record of the Triassic. This beautiful book is lavishly illustrated by Douglas Henderson, and is eminently collectible for both the rich treasures of information on the biology, ecology, and geology of the Triassic and its gorgeous illustrations.


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