Recent reading
Jul. 22nd, 2018 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaA Monstrous Regiment by ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
AMarguerite (2017, Austen/Temeraire crossover)
This is 230 pages of Elizabeth Bennett being a dragon captain, and it is excellent! The scene where Darcy finds out is priceless. The pairing isn't Elizabeth/Darcy though--it's a gen fic but with hints of Elizabeth/Colonel Fitzwilliam, which I see will be followed up on in a sequel. In fact I hardly remember Colonel Fitzwilliam from P&P, but I do like him here, and there's lots of good worldbuilding too. Anyway, A+ entertainment, recommended!
The Great Extinctions: What Causes Them and How They Shape Life by Norman MacLeod (2013)
When I was complaining about Scatter, Adapt and Remember, I guess this is what I wanted instead. It's written in a dry textbook-style, but that's fine. It goes through all the major extinctions and theories about what caused them. The conclusion is that the proximate causes are most often rise/fall in sea level, cooling/warming climate, and changes in ocean circulation that cause anoxia. The ultimate causes are most often plate tectonics and massive volcanism (so-called large igneous provinces). Plate tectonics for example can cause changes in the size of ocean basins leading to the rise/fall of sea level, can cause ice caps to form if there is land over a pole, and can form or cut off ocean currents. Most often major extinction events happen when multiple proximate causes are operating at once. The author is not a fan of asteroid impact theories, pointing out that known such impacts do not in general correlate well with large extinction events (except the end-Cretaceous one, which also had other causes operating at the same time).
He also comments on the current situation. Apparently we are at a very low sea level stand, geologically speaking, even after the rise at the end of the last Ice Age? I did not know this. He thinks many estimates of current extinction rates are exaggerated, but this does not mean all is well, and we could very well be heading for another major extinction event. What boggles me is that he does not at all comment on human-induced climate change, just on habitat loss. Why does he not comment on that?
This is 230 pages of Elizabeth Bennett being a dragon captain, and it is excellent! The scene where Darcy finds out is priceless. The pairing isn't Elizabeth/Darcy though--it's a gen fic but with hints of Elizabeth/Colonel Fitzwilliam, which I see will be followed up on in a sequel. In fact I hardly remember Colonel Fitzwilliam from P&P, but I do like him here, and there's lots of good worldbuilding too. Anyway, A+ entertainment, recommended!
The Great Extinctions: What Causes Them and How They Shape Life by Norman MacLeod (2013)
When I was complaining about Scatter, Adapt and Remember, I guess this is what I wanted instead. It's written in a dry textbook-style, but that's fine. It goes through all the major extinctions and theories about what caused them. The conclusion is that the proximate causes are most often rise/fall in sea level, cooling/warming climate, and changes in ocean circulation that cause anoxia. The ultimate causes are most often plate tectonics and massive volcanism (so-called large igneous provinces). Plate tectonics for example can cause changes in the size of ocean basins leading to the rise/fall of sea level, can cause ice caps to form if there is land over a pole, and can form or cut off ocean currents. Most often major extinction events happen when multiple proximate causes are operating at once. The author is not a fan of asteroid impact theories, pointing out that known such impacts do not in general correlate well with large extinction events (except the end-Cretaceous one, which also had other causes operating at the same time).
He also comments on the current situation. Apparently we are at a very low sea level stand, geologically speaking, even after the rise at the end of the last Ice Age? I did not know this. He thinks many estimates of current extinction rates are exaggerated, but this does not mean all is well, and we could very well be heading for another major extinction event. What boggles me is that he does not at all comment on human-induced climate change, just on habitat loss. Why does he not comment on that?
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Date: 2018-07-22 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-22 05:39 pm (UTC)