在《恐龙的最后日子》中，莱利·布莱克带领读者浏览了撞击发生后的几天、几年、几个世纪和数百万年里发生的事情，追踪了超过这一地点的大规模破坏，并想象了全球其他地方可能发生的事。生命的损失是尖锐而深刻的，但幸存下来的生命所承载的希望为我们现在所知的世界奠定了基础。
想象自己身处白垩纪。这是6600万年前的一个阳光明媚的下午，在古老蒙大拿州的地狱溪中。一只可怕的三角龙在森林边缘漫步。在几个小时内，这里的一切都将被抹去。郁郁葱葱的青翠将被大火取代。霸王龙和所有其他非鸟类恐龙，无论大小、饮食或性格如何，都将被推翻。他们只是还不知道而已。
这场灾难的起因是几十年前确定的。一颗直径约7英里的小行星撞向地球，留下直径超过50英里的地质伤口。在随后可怕的大灭绝中，超过一半的已知物种似乎在一夜之间消失了。但这是地球生命史上最糟糕的一天，这一天对我们和恐龙都至关重要，因为它为我们提供了在过去1亿年中关闭的进化机会。
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World
In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.
Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet.
The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.
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