The Worst Day on Earth: A Selection from Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2019)

“It was the worst day in the history of our planet. A few hours of unimaginable violence . . . . For the last several weeks, the more perceptive of the Rexes may have noticed a glowing orb in the sky, far off in the distance—a hazy ball with a fiery rim, like a duller and smaller version of the sun. The orb seemed to be getting larger, but then it would disappear from view for large portions of the day. . . .

But this morning, as the pack broke through the trees and emerged onto the riverbank, all of them could see that something was different. The orb was back, and it was gigantic, its shine illuminating much of the sky to the southeast in a cloudy psychedelic mist. Then, a flash. No noise, only a split-second flare of yellow that lit up the whole sky, disorienting the Rexes for a moment. As they blinked their eyes back to focus, they noticed that the orb was now gone, the sky a dull blue . . . .

And then they were blindsided. Another flash, but this one far more vengeful. The rays lit the morning air in a fireworks display and burned into their retinas. One of the juvenile males fell over, cracking his ribs. The rest of them stood frozen, blinking manically, trying to rid themselves of the sparks and speckles that flooded their vision.

Still no sound to go with the visual fury. In fact, no noise at all. . . . The calm lasted for only a few seconds. Next, the ground beneath their feet started to rumble, then to shake, and then to flow. Like waves. Pulses of energy were shooting through the rocks and soil, the ground rising and falling, as if a giant snake were slithering underneath.

Everything not rooted into the dirt was thrown upward; then it crashed down, and then up and down again, the Earth’s surface having turned into a trampoline. . . . The forces were more than enough to crush skulls, snap necks, and break legs. . . .

As the lucky survivors staggered out, sidestepping the corpses of their compatriots, the sky began to change color above them. Blue turned to orange, then to pale red. The red got sharper and darker. Brighter, brighter, brighter. As if the headlights of a giant oncoming car were coming closer and closer. Soon everything was bathed in an incandescent glory. Then the rains came.

But what fell from the sky was not water. It was beads of glass and chunks of rock, each one scalding hot. The pea-size morsels pelted the surviving dinosaurs, gouging deep burns into their flesh. Many of them were gunned down, and their shredded corpses joined the earthquake victims on the battlefield. Meanwhile, as the bullets of glassy rock whizzed down from above, they were transferring heat to the air.

The atmosphere grew hotter, until the surface of the Earth became an oven. Forests spontaneously ignited and wildfires swept across the land. The surviving animals were now roasting, their skin and bones cooking at temperatures that instantaneously produce third-degree burns. . . .

Over the next hour or so, the rain of bullets ceased, and the air cooled. . . . It seemed that the danger was over, and many of the survivors came out of their hiding places to survey the scene. Carnage everywhere, and although the sky was no longer radioactive red, it was getting blacker as it choked up with soot from the forest fires, which were still raging. As a couple of raptors sniffed the charred bodies of the T. rex pack, they must have thought that they had survived the apocalypse. They were wrong.

Some two and a half hours after the first light flash, the clouds began to howl. The soot in the atmosphere began to swirl into tornadoes. And then—woosh—the wind charged across the plains and through the river valleys, blowing at hurricane force, hard enough to make many of the rivers and lakes burst their banks. Along with the wind was a deafening noise, louder than anything these dinosaurs had ever heard. Then another.

Sound travels much slower than light, and these were the sonic booms that occurred at the same time as the two light flashes, caused by the distant horror that had started the chain reaction of brimstone hours earlier. The raptors shrieked in pain as their ears ruptured . . . .

When night finally came and this most horrible of days finally was over, many—maybe even most—of the dinosaurs were dead, all over the world. Some did stagger on, however, into the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year, and the next decades.

It was not an easy time. For several years after that terrible day, the Earth turned cold and dark because soot and rock dust lingered in the atmosphere and blocked out the sun. The darkness brought cold—a nuclear winter that only the hardiest of animals could survive. . . . It was the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.”—Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World (2019)