Structure

“The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert is broken up into 13 chapters. The chapters cover her travels to the far reaches of the planet in order to get her story. She was intrigued by an article about the earth possibly being in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. As a reporter and lover of the dynamics between man and nature, she felt compelled to gather as much information as she could about the extinction and share what she learned with her readership.

Kolbert goes back in time to the first discovery of mastodon bones. This finding led to the theory of extinction and made profound changes in the world of science, geology and paleontology. She discusses specific extinctions that appeared right before our eyes – the Great Auk of yesteryear and the Panamanian Golden Frog of today.

The cause and effect of the extinction is discussed and the...