ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A journalist writing a book about mass extinction needs a lot of help.
Many very knowledgeable, generous, and patient people lent their time
and expertise to this project.
For help understanding what’s come to be known as the amphibian
crisis, I am indebted to Edgardo Griffith, Heidi Ross, Paul Crump, Vance
Vredenburg, David Wake, Karen Lips, Joe Mendelson, Erica Bree
Rosenblum, and Allan Pessier.
For his behind-the-scenes tour of Paris’s Museum of Natural History, I
want to thank Pascal Tassy. For showing me the great auk and its former
haunts, I’d like to thank Guðmundur Guðmundsson, Reynir Sveinsson,
and Halldór Ármannsson, as well as Magnus Bernhardsson, who made the
trip out to Eldey possible. Neil Landman generously showed me the
Cretaceous sites of New Jersey and his extraordinary collection of
ammonites. Thanks to Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Andy Knoll for sharing
their expertise on the end-Permian extinction, and to Nick Longrich and
Steve D’Hondt for sharing theirs on the end-Cretaceous.
I owe a special debt to Jan Zalasiewicz, who, in addition to taking me
graptolite hunting in Scotland, has answered innumerable questions over
the last few years. I am also grateful to Dan Condon and Ian Millar for a
memorable (if wet) expedition, and to Paul Crutzen for explaining to me
his idea of the Anthropocene.
Ocean acidification is a daunting topic. I never would have been able to
write about it without the help of Chris Langdon, Richard Feely, Chris
Sabine, Joanie Kleypas, Victoria Fabry, Ulf Riebesell, Lee Kump, and Mark
Pagani. I am especially grateful to Jason Hall-Spencer, who took me
swimming out to Castello Aragonese in the freezing cold and afterward
patiently answered my many questions. Also many thanks to Maria
Cristina Buia for arranging the journey.
I have turned to Ken Caldeira over and over again for help