“In 1943, at Paricutin in Mexico . . .” Smith, The Weather, p. 112.
“you wouldn’t be able to get within a thousand kilometers . . .” BBC Horizon documentary “Crater of Death,” first broadcast May 6, 2001.
“a bang that reverberated around the world . . .” Lewis, Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 152.
“The last supervolcano eruption on Earth . . .” McGuire, p. 104.
“for the next twenty thousand years . . .” McGuire, p. 107.
“you’re standing on the largest active volcano in the world . . .” Paul Doss, interview with author, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, June 16, 2001.
“devastatingly evident on the night of August 17, 1959 . . .” Smith and Siegel, pp. 5-6.
“as little as a single molecule . . .” Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve, p. 12.
“scientists were finding even hardier microbes . . .” Ashcroft, Life at the Extremes, p. 275.
“As NASA scientist Jay Bergstralh has put it . . .” PBS NewsHour transcript, August 20, 2002.
“99.5 percent of the world’s habitable space . . .” New York Times Book Review, “Where Leviathan Lives,” April 20, 1997, p. 9.
“water is about 1,300 times heavier than air . . .” Ashcroft, p. 51.
“your veins would collapse . . .” New Scientist, “Into the Abyss,” March 31, 2001.
“the pressure is equivalent to being squashed . . .” New Yorker, “The Pictures,” February 15, 2000, p. 47.
“Because we are made largely of water ourselves . . .” Ashcroft, p. 68.
“humans may be more like whales . . .” Ashcroft, p. 69.
“all that is left in the suit . . .” Haldane, What is Life? p. 188.
“the directors of a new tunnel under the Thames . . .” Ashcroft, p. 59.
“he had discovered himself disrobing . . .” Norton, Stars Beneath the Sea, p. 111.
“Haldane’s gift to diving . . .” Haldane, What Is Life? p. 202.
“his blood saturation level had reached 56 percent . . .” Norton, p. 105.
“But is it oxyhaemoglobin . . .” Quoted in Norton, p. 121.
“the cleverest man I ever knew.” Gould, The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 305.
“a very enjoyable experience . . .” Norton, p. 124.
“seizure, bleeding or vomiting.” Norton, p. 133.
“Perforated eardrums were quite common . . .” Haldane, What is Life? p. 192.
“left Haldane without feeling . . .” Haldane, What Is Life? p. 202.
“It also produced wild mood swings.” Ashcroft, p. 78.
“the tester was usually as intoxicated . . .” Haldane, What Is Life? p. 197.
“The cause of the inebriation . . .” Ashcroft, p. 79.
“half the calories you burn . . .” Attenborough, The Living Planet, p. 39.
“the portions of Earth . . .” Smith, p. 40.
“Had our sun been ten times as massive . . .” Ferris, The Whole Shebang, p. 81.
“The Sun’s warmth reaches it . . .” Grinspoon, p. 9.
“Venus was only slightly warmer than Earth . . .” National Geographic, “The Planets,” January 1985, p. 40.
“the atmospheric pressure at the surface . . .” McSween, Stardust to
