Copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR

press.princeton.edu

Cover art © Dai Mar Tamarack/Shutterstock.

All Rights Reserved

Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2017

Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-17602-4

The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows

Wignall, P. B.

The worst of times : how life on earth survived eighty million years of extinctions / Paul B. Wignall.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-14209-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Mass extinctions. 2. Extinction (Biology) 3. Survival. I. Title.

QE721.2.E97W54 2016

576.8′4—dc23

2015005727

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Sabon Next LT Pro & Grotesque MT STD.

Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2