The book alternates between the story of Nobantu and her true-dog-tooth clan of cynodonts in the late Permian and the story of four geologists in the present day as they travel across South Africa, looking at Permian fossils and speculating about the animals that existed back then.
The book opens in a college classroom where Professor Wilhelm Van Dyke and his graduate student Danielle give a lecture on the history of animal life. They discuss their work on fossils from the Permian period, and the events at the end Permian when most life on earth died.
They finally reach their destination, Royal Natal National Park, where Dr. Van Dyke has heard reports of a fossil cynodont burrow complex in a pristine canyon. They drive their four-wheel drive vehicle up a dry stream bed and find the fossil burrow complex. It is what Dr. Van Dyke has spent his career looking for and he is ecstatic. It begins to rain and the canyon floods. The group has their own desperate quest for survival as they try to hike back to their camp.
The book alternates between the story of Nobantu and her true-dog-tooth clan of cynodonts in the late Permian and the story of four geologists in the present day as they travel across South Africa, looking at Permian fossils and speculating about the animals that existed back then.
The book opens in a college classroom where Professor Wilhelm Van Dyke and his graduate student Danielle give a lecture on the history of animal life. They discuss their work on fossils from the Permian period, and the events at the end Permian when most life on earth died.
They finally reach their destination, Royal Natal National Park, where Dr. Van Dyke has heard reports of a fossil cynodont burrow complex in a pristine canyon. They drive their four-wheel drive vehicle up a dry stream bed and find the fossil burrow complex. It is what Dr. Van Dyke has spent his career looking for and he is ecstatic. It begins to rain and the canyon floods. The group has their own desperate quest for survival as they try to hike back to their camp.
CHAPTER 1
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Professor Wilhelm Van Dyke stood next to the lectern and watched the auditorium fill. He was teaching the âHistory of Lifeâ, a general geology class, and it was boring him because the students were mainly ignorant freshmen. There were about 100 students in the class, but the vast auditorium with its stadium seating still seemed empty. As he watched the students take their seats, he noted how the eager students sat in front, checking their notes, while the lazy ones climbed the steps, sat in back, and typed on their cellphones.
He watched as two coeds approached, laughing and talking. The sound of their voices made him tingle, as their high pitched voices excited his senses. He sniffed the air and detected the smell of perfume, from the dark-haired one on the right. Thatâs Cassie, he thought, a geology undergraduate student. I wonder if she has a boyfriend.
He glanced to his right. Standing next to him was his Ph.D. graduate student and teaching assistant, Danielle. She looks beautiful today, he thought. Too bad she doesn't give me the time of day. Quite the feminist. Doesnât like men. A real ice queen. If I had known that last year I wouldn't have agreed to be her advisor. But sheâs smart, and her research looks promising. Maybe weâll publish something together next year.
Van Dyke stared as Cassie passed by. He watched as she reached the front row, placed her army green back pack on the floor, then turned and plopped down in the seat. Van Dyke noticed that Danielle was staring at him.
âWhat? Thatâs Cassie, geology undergraduate student. Beautiful, eh? Except for that nasty scar on her face. She wants to be my graduate student. Doesnât have the grades, really, to get into graduate school but maybe we can come to an agreement.â
Danielle glared at him. He was a big man, well-muscled from his work outs, and his long brown hair was pulled back in a man bun. He was handsome except for the big nose, so large it was almost snout-like.
âYouâre disgusting,â she said.
âShe went to geologic field camp last summer. My colleague says sheâs good in the field. Great navigation skills. Maybe you should invite her on our field trip.â
âInvite her yourself. Iâm not your procurer.â
Van Dyke sighed, then warily eyed an approaching student. Alton, a skinny teenager with a mass of curly brown hair, walked up and stopped in front of them. On the front of his black T-shirt was a picture of a blue atom circled by white spinning electrons. Below the atom were the words âPowered by Autismâ.
âGood day, Professor. I look forward to your lecture.â Alton turned, climbed the steps and took an aisle seat.                 Â
Van Dyke turned to Danielle. âThatâs Alton, an undergraduate physics student. I know his Physics professor.â
âI know,â Danielle said. âYou told me. With that hair he looks like a skinny Greek statue.â
Dr. Van Dyke glanced her way, surprised, then stepped in front of the lectern and turned on the microphone.
âTake your seats,â he said. âLet's get started. This class is about the history of life. Now itâs time to use your imaginations!
âWe must go back in time, to the end of the Permian period, 252 million years ago. Picture this: we are standing on a tall hill that overlooks a large inland lake in central Africa. We are looking south across the lake. What do we see? On the distant horizon we see mountains rising up, which continue far south to high peaks in Antarctica. In front of the mountains is a vast flat plain. The climate is hot, with seasonal monsoons, so large rivers sourced in the mountains flow north across the plain, leaving thick deposits of sandstone and shale. Occasionally the rivers flood and leave fine-grained crevasse splay deposits to cover the sandstones.
âOn the margins of the lake are mosses, ferns, and conifer trees. A tree with a woody trunk called Glossopteris is common. Most of these trees stand about four meters tall, but some are much taller. Their leaves are tongue-shaped and cluster in bunches at the end of branches. Living beneath the trees are insects: spiders, millipedes, beetles, and cockroaches. There are no ants, bees, or butterflies as these came much later. Stalking the insects is a green archosaur, a hang-toothed lizard, with its short limbs and long tail. It sits quietly in the brush until it sees an insect, then it lunges forward and scoops it up with its long front teeth. Flies are common, and hovering in the air over the lake are dragonflies, some with 10 inch wingspans. Amphibians sun on the bank, and the lake teems with sunfish.
âGrazing in the shrubs on the edge of the lake is a herd of the dicynodont Lystrosaurus. Their long tusks glisten in the sun. With their pointed beaks they snap off leaves and branches from the bushes. They periodically raise their heads to look around, peering into the trees and sniffing the air, watching for predators, for they are the hunted.
âCreeping low through the ferns, downwind of the herd, is a therocephalian âbeast-headâ. He creeps along on stubby legs, quietly pushing his long snout through the underbrush beneath the trees. He cannot see the Lystrosaurus herd yet but he can smell them and hear them. He is hungry, and saliva drips from his poisonous fangs. When he gets to the edge of the trees he stops, as he can now see the lakeâs edge. He eyes the herd and plots a route through the brush where he can get closer.
âIn the hills above the lake are a series of burrows beneath ground, with a single entrance shaft which branches out down below. A cynodont âtrue dog teethâ clan lives in the burrows. A mother and her children sit on a dirt mound in front of the burrow complex and watch the Lystrosaurus herd graze near the lake. They look like skinny hairy dogs with long snouts, and their whiskers bristle on each side of a moist nose. To one side stand muscular stocky males, watching the females.â
Van Dyke released the microphone from its stand and began pacing the stage.
âBut there is a problem with this idyllic scene. On earth 252 million years ago there existed one giant supercontinent, Pangaea. Unbeknownst to these animals, to the north at the top of the continent a mega-volcano was erupting. Large volumes of basaltic lava were spewing forth, covering present-day Siberia in a huge volume of flood basalts. This eruption was coincident with the Permian-Triassic boundary, and the eruption started about 252 million years ago.
âThe eruption released the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. As the carbon dissolved in the ocean, the water grew warmer. The water became acidic and sea creatures could not form shells of calcium carbonate. In the ocean, vast coastal areas became anoxic dead zones, purged of oxygen. Large fish could not survive.
âOn land there were acid-tinged rains carried by hot winds. The plants died and the continents denuded due to rapid weathering. Insects became extinct. Carbon levels skyrocketed as dead plants and animals piled up. Plants rotted, releasing more carbon. There was a complete devastation of plants. All this happened within 100,000 years at the end of the Permian Period. It was the Great Dying, and 95% of species on earth died.
âAs temperatures rose the oceans overheated. The oceans became dominated by slime, bacterial colonies feeding on dead bodies of multicellular organisms. The deadly gas hydrogen sulfide, H2S, was produced in the sea by the microbes. When the H2S concentrations increased in the ocean, the gas rose to the surface in bubbles. The H2S came to the surface in pulses, and winds that carried the gas onshore unleashed short term killing events.
âAs H2S accumulated in the troposphere, the ozone shield was destroyed. Fossil spores from the end Permian show mutations from high UV fluxes, created after the ozone layer was gone. Animals would have been fried by exposure to the UV sunlight. The climate became extraordinarily dry and hot. For animals on land it was a time of death in the desert, from the high temperatures, low oxygen, the searing sun, and periodic fluxes of poisonous H2S gas.
âAt the very end Permian, the oxygen levels were so low that living at sea level was like living at 5000 meters today. High plateaus at that time were without animal life because it was so hard to breathe. But H2S gas is heavier than air and stays close to the ground, so to escape H2S itâs better to stay in the highlands. So as animals struggled to survive the end Permian catastrophe, they had to make a choice: go to the lowlands to breathe oxygen, or to the highlands to escape the H2S gas. Only the animals that made the right choice, the counterintuitive choice, would survive.â
Itâs the end of the Permian period, 252 million years ago. At the northern tip of Pangaea a mega-volcano erupts covering present-day Siberia with basalt. This was the beginning of the Great Dying. Only those creatures living in the highlands escaped the deadly hydrogen sulfide.
Nobantu, Mother of the People, a cynodont (ancestor of mammals) matriarch plans the dayâs hunt for her true-dog-tooth clan. Her father Umkulu has been having bad dreams.
Paleontologist Dr. Wilhelm Van Dyke is in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with Cassie, Danielle and Alton, on a field trip to study the Permo-Triassic boundary.
On the field trip they debate paleontology, geology, climate change, asteroids, volcanoes and extinction events. Interacting with the locals they discuss the history of South Africa, terrorism and apartheid. They even debate the Russian Revolution and the possibility of socialism in South Africa. The Americans are, as is our wont, too arrogant and ignorant of other cultures, and it gets them in trouble.
But the real drama is between the people on the team, prickly Danielle, nerdy Alton and the Prof, who drinks too much and is endlessly trying to chat up beautiful but tough geologist and Afghan vet, Cassie. The team sees ancient cave paintings, criss-cross patterns in red ochre, and in Chapter 11 the story digresses to that of these cave paintings.
A village of early hominid hunters is visited by some light-skinned coastal traders who eat fish and live in caves. A boy trader Neo likes a girl villager, and she likes him back. She paints in red on the cave wall mountains.
The tale of Nobantu and her clanâs struggle for survival is like the screenplay for an episode of âWalking with Dinosaursâ (which I adored!). Sometimes stories told from the point of view of animals are silly, but I found this one credible.
I liked the way the vastly different story lines connected. The paleontology field trip is studying the same areas that Nobantuâs cynodonts had travelled and eventually find their fossilised bones. The climate change that forces the cynodont clan to move is discussed by the paleontology students. The red ochre criss-cross cave paintings the field trippers see is painted by the girl in the hominid village. However, I found the hominid digression a bit anomalous and surplus to the overall plot.
This is one of my favourite types of novels. We get to learn a lot about some scientific subject, but at the same time thereâs interesting social drama going on between the characters. I was only disappointed in that with so much going on, the character of the main protagonist, Cassie, doesnât have much time to develop. The others, also, have interesting backstories that get a bit rushed through with all the action going on.
The story is worth it, though, and gets quite exciting at the end, with a real Hollywood ending. Mother of the People would make a smashing filmâthe cynodonts could be done with animation.