This horrific story is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific murder mystery: what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? In T. rex and the Crater of Doom, the story of the detective work that went into solving the mystery is told by geologist Walter Alvarez, one of the four Berkeley scientists who discovered the first evidence of the giant impact. It is a saga of high adventure in remote parts of the world, of patient data collection, of lonely intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughts, of intense public debate, of friendships made and lost, of the exhilaration of discovery, and of delight as a fascinating story unfolded. Walter Alvarez is professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley