Tropical Arctic: Lost Plants, Future Climates, and the Discovery of Ancient Greenland

An illustrated visit to the tropical arctic of 205 million years ago when Greenland was green. While today&;s Greenland is largely covered in ice, in the time of the dinosaurs the area was a lushly forested, tropical zone. Tropical Arctic tracks a ten-million-year window of Earth&;s history when global temperatures soared and the vegetation of the world responded. A project over eighteen years in the making, Tropical Arctic is the result of a unique collaboration between two paleobotanists, Jennifer C. McElwain and Ian J. Glasspool, and award-winning scientific illustrator Marlene Hill Donnelly. They began with a simple question: &;What was the color of a fossilized leaf?&; Tropical Arctic answers that question and more, allowing readers to experience Triassic Greenland through three reconstructed landscapes and an expertly researched catalog of extinct plants. A stunning compilation of paint and pencil art, photos, maps, and engineered fossil models, Tropical Arctic blends art and science to bring a lost world to life. Readers will also enjoy a front-row seat to the scientific adventures of life in the field, with engaging anecdotes about analyzing fossils and learning to ward off polar bear attacks.Tropical Arctic explains our planet&;s story of environmental upheaval, mass extinction, and resilience. By looking at Earth&;s past, we see a glimpse of the future of our warming planet&;and learn an important lesson for our time of climate change.