The Last Extinction

The story behind Dr. Gerta Keller’s world-shattering scientific discovery that dinosaur extinction was NOT caused by asteroid impact, but rather by volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula, a discovery that highlights today’s existential threat of greenhouse gasses and climate change—and one that sparked an all-out war waged by the scientific establishment.

Professor Gerta Keller is at the center of what has been called the nastiest feud in science, a contentious debate popularly known as “The Dinosaur Wars” over what triggered the fifth mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Era sixty-six million years ago. And the question of what caused the dinosaurs' demise is more relevant than ever, as humankind confronts the paroxysms of an imperiled planet and the possibility that we may become the dinosaurs of the sixth extinction.

Born into a life of poverty on a small farm in Switzerland as the sixth of a dozen children, Gerta was told her dreams of becoming a doctor were impossible. Never one to take no for an answer, she defied the odds and reclaimed her childhood dream of studying science, ultimately completing her graduate studies in geology at Stanford and becoming a professor at Princeton University and a major voice in her field. Along the way, she overcame the hostility and disdain of her male colleagues, who sabotaged her work, took credit for her discoveries, and chided her for not “knowing her place.”

Driven by a relentless passion to discover the truth of Earth’s catastrophic upheavals, Gerta continued her research in a series of incredible adventures across the globe that have caused some to liken her to a female Indiana Jones and which led her to uncover a growing mass of evidence that contradicted the then-widely accepted asteroid impact theory. Rather, Gerta discovered, the real cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction was Deccan volcanism, a series of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula. Outraged by her daring to challenge them, the toxic, male scientific establishment launched an all-out war against Gerta, doing their utmost to sabotage her work, destroy her reputation, and suppress the publication of her research. But they picked a fight with the wrong woman.

Today, after nearly forty years, the tide has turned, and a new generation of scientists is embracing Deccan volcanism as the most likely cause for at least four out of the five major mass extinctions in Earth’s history. The Last Extinction is the story of that lone journey by a woman and a small team of collaborators, their exhilarating discoveries, and the uphill battle against a unified dominant group unwilling to listen to reason. There is betrayal and sabotage, as well as perseverance and vindication, and woven through it all, the dinosaurs, and the greatest scientific detective story of our time.