What you will learn in Fossils and the History of Life

1. 1. What survives

   Choose what died, where it fell, how fast it was buried and how long it waited. Most runs leave nothing, and that is the correct result.

2. 2. The biased record

   Twelve groups of animals living in the sea today, and a prediction about each before the fossil record is shown. Four of them very nearly vanish.

3. 3. Correlating with fossils

   Two sections on two continents and four real fossils to match them with. The commonest fossil is useless; the rarest is decisive.

4. 4. The day the Cretaceous ended

   The K–Pg evidence in the order it was found: iridium first, the crater eleven years later. Each line is weighed against four explanations, and Deccan volcanism is one of them for real.

5. 5. Five, and possibly six

   Extinction through the last half-billion years, from a named database. The end-Permian is the largest; the K–Pg is the famous one. Then the modern rate, with its uncertainty shown as a band, and the older, larger change life made to the air.