title: Asteroid Impact
author:  Douglas Henderson 
description: Grade 5-8-In a seamless combination of dramatic paintings and lucid text, Henderson presents the sequence of events that closed the Cretaceous Period and, according to many scientists, caused the extinction of a vast array of life-forms, including the dinosaurs. Coordinating data from a broad spectrum of disciplines, the author reconstructs the catastrophic impact of an asteroid some six miles across as it rocketed out of space and slammed into the Yucat n Peninsula. Readers can follow, step by step, as the enormous explosion generated a huge crater and devastating shock waves, earthquakes, forest fires, tidal waves, and a vast plume of ejecta reaching up into space (and ultimately surrounding the planet). Two pages of questions and answers detail the 1977 discovery of the K/T boundary, evidence that a comet or asteroid fell to Earth 65 million years ago, and describe the unprecedented coalition of geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, and physicists that brought the theory together. A brilliant re-creation of an apocalypse.<br /><i>Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY </i><br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: Christopher Stasheff
  Christopher Stasheff
   
  The Warlock In Spite
  of Himself
   
  MAYFLOWER
   
  GRANADA
  London Toronto Sydney New York
   
  PART ONE
   
  VISIT TO A SMALL PLANTAGENET
   
  The asteroid hurtled in from Capricorn, nosed around a G-type sun, 
  swerved off toward the fifth planet. Such a trajectory is somewhat 
  atypical for asteroids.
  It slapped into the planet's gravity net, swooped around the globe 
  three times in three separate orbits, then stabbed into 
  atmosphere, a glorious shooting star.
  At a hundred feet altitude it paused, then snapped to the surface -
  but only to the surface. No fireworks, no crater - nothing more 
  drastic than crushed grass. It~ surface was scarred and pitted, 
  blackened by the friction-heat of its fall; but it was intact.
  Deep within its bowels echoed the words that would change the 
  planet's destiny.
  'Damn your bolt-.brained bearings!'
  The voice broke off; its owner frowned, listening.
  The cabin was totally silent, without its usual threshold hum.
  The young ma