Adventures in Volcanoland charts journeys across deserts, through jungles and up ice caps, to some of the world's most important volcanoes, from Nicaragua to Hawaii, Santorini to Ethiopia, exploring Tamsin Mather's obsession with these momentous geological formations, the cultural and religious roles they have played in the minds of those living around them at different times throughout history, and the science behind their formation and eruptions.

Volcanoes help to make and shape our world, bursting forth from inside of the earth and, in many places, looming over us. Present since the earth's beginning they continue to maintain its life support systems and, their extraordinary chemistry may even have created the ingredients needed for life to kick start.

In some places volcanoes are even beginning to provide us with part of the energy we need to curb our use of fossil fuels. They have fascinated humans for millennia, their eruptions charted throughout history, seeming to show us how the earth has been living, breathing and changing for billions of years.

Why exactly are these geological mammoths found where they are? What can they teach us about our environment, the Anthropocene and the ecological disaster that is climate change? Are there volcanoes on other planets, and what might they tell us about whether we could one day live there if we exhaust our own habitat? How can we predict if or when volcanoes might explode?

Adventures in Volcanoland is an enthralling mix of travel, science and environmental writing for fans of Robert MacFarlane and Raynor Winn.

The Sunday Times Bestseller A new, fully updated narrative edition of David Attenborough's seminal biography of our world, The Living Planet. Nowhere on our planet is devoid of life. Plants and animals thrive or survive within every extreme of climate and habitat that it offers. Single species, and often whole communities adapt to make the most of ice cap and tundra, forest and plain, desert, ocean and volcano. These adaptations can be truly extraordinary: fish that walk or lay eggs on leaves in mid-air; snakes that fly; flightless birds that graze like deer; and bears that grow hair on the soles of their feet. In The Living Planet, David Attenborough's searching eye, unfailing curiosity and infectious enthusiasm explain and illuminate the intricate lives of the these colonies, from the lonely heights of the Himalayas to the wild creatures that have established themselves in the most recent of environments, the city. By the end of this book it is difficult to say which is the more astonishing - the ingenuity with which individual species contrive a living, or the complexity of their interdependence on each other and on the habitations provided by our planet. In this new edition, the author, with the help of zoologist Matthew Cobb, has added all the most up-to-date discoveries of ecology and biology, as well as a full-colour 64-page photography section. He also addresses the urgent issues facing our living planet: climate change, pollution and mass extinction of species.

The author examines natural disasters around the Pacific Rim throughout history together with scientific data context to produce enlightening-and highly readable-entries. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's coast, triggering a powerful tsunami. The massive destruction that resulted proved that not even sophisticated, industrialized nations are immune from nature's fury. Written to take some of the mystery out of the earth's behavior, this encyclopedia chronicles major natural disasters that have occurred around the Pacific Rim, an area nicknamed the "Ring of Fire" because of the volatile earth that lies above and below. The encyclopedia offers descriptions of deadly earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis through time. The entries provide in-depth information that promotes an understanding of the structure of the earth and earth processes and shares the insights of scientists whose work helps clarify the causes and effects of these cataclysmic events. At the same time, the work examines how the people and cultures of the Pacific Rim view this active part of the earth, how they live with the threat of disaster, and how they have been affected by major events that have occurred. Readers will come away with a holistic view of what is known, how this knowledge was gained, and what its implications may be. Features approximately 100 alphabetically arranged entries with insights into specific disasters, technology, key geographic features of the area, significant people, cultural beliefs, and more Includes a general introduction and overview of the geography and tectonic activity in the Pacific Rim countries Offers both historical and scientific information Explains complex natural phenomena and scientific concepts using nontechnical language and clear illustrations Provides relevant cross-references to related topics as well as to articles, books, and websites that offer further information

The book, after two introductory chapters on seismic design principles and structural seismic analysis methods, proceeds with the detailed description of seismic design methods for steel building structures. These methods include all the well-known methods, like force-based or displacement-based methods, plus some other methods developed by the present authors or other authors that have reached a level of maturity and are applicable to a large class of steel building structures. For every method, detailed practical examples and supporting references are provided in order to illustrate the methods and demonstrate their merits. As a unique feature, the present book describes not just one, as it is the case with existing books on seismic design of steel structures, but various seismic design methods including application examples worked in detail. The book is a valuable source of information, not only for MS and PhD students, but also for researchers and practicing engineers engaged with the design of steel building structures.

This volume presents select papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. The papers discuss advances in the fields of soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering. Some of the themes include seismic risk assessment, engineering seismology, wave propagation, remote sensing applications for geohazards,engineering vibrations, etc. A strong emphasis is placed on connecting academic research and field practice, with many examples, case studies, best practices, and discussions on performance based design. This volume will be of interest to researchers and practicing engineers alike.

Volcanoes have terrified and, at the same time, fascinated civilizations for thousands of years. Many aspects of volcanoes, most notably the eruptive processes and the compositional variations of magma, have been widely investigated for several decades and today constitute the core of any volcanology textbook. Nevertheless, in the last two decades, boosted by the availability of volcano monitoring data, there has been an increasing interest in the pre-eruptive processes related to the shallow accumulation and to the transfer of magma approaching the surface, as well as in the resulting structure of volcanoes. These are innovative and essential aspects of modern volcanology and, as driving volcanic unrest, their understanding also improves hazard assessment and eruption forecasting. So far, the significant progress made in unravelling these volcano-tectonic processes has not been supported by a comprehensive overview. This monograph aims at filling this gap, describing the pre-eruptive processes related to the structure, deformation and tectonics of volcanoes, at the local and regional scale, in any tectonic setting. The monograph is organized into three sections ("Fundamentals", "Magma migration towards the surface" and "The regional perspective"), consisting of thirteen chapters that are lavishly illustrated. The reader is accompanied in a journey within the volcano factory, discovering the processes associated with the shallow accumulation of magma and its transfer towards the surface, how these control the structure of volcanoes and their activity and, ultimately, improve our ability to estimate hazard and forecast eruption. The potential readership includes any academic, researcher and upper undergraduate student interested in volcanology, magma intrusions, structural geology, tectonics, geodesy, as well as geology and geophysics in general.

Volcanic seismology represents the main, and often the only, tool to forecast volcanic eruptions and to monitor the eruption process. This book describes the main types of seismic signals at volcanoes, their nature and spatial and temporal distributions at different stages of eruptive activity. Following from the success of the first edition, published in 2003, the second edition consists of 19 chapters including significant revision and five new chapters. Organized into four sections, the book begins with an introduction to the history and topic of volcanic seismology, discussing the theoretical and experimental models that were developed for the study of the origin of volcanic earthquakes. The second section is devoted to the study of volcano-tectonic earthquakes, giving the theoretical basis for their occurrence and swarms as well as case stories of volcano-tectonic activity associated with the eruptions at basaltic, andesitic, and dacitic volcanoes. There were 40 cases of volcanic eruptions at 20 volcanoes that occurred all over the world from 1910 to 2005, which are discussed. General regularities of volcano-tectonic earthquake swarms, their participation in the eruptive process, their source properties, and the hazard of strong volcano-tectonic earthquakes are also described. The third section describes the theoretical basis for the occurrence of eruption earthquakes together with the description of volcanic tremor, the seismic signals associated with pyroclastic flows, rockfalls and lahars, and volcanic explosions, long-period and very-long-period seismic signals at volcanoes, micro-earthquake swarms, and acoustic events. The final section discuss the mitigation of volcanic hazard and include the methodology of seismic monitoring of volcanic activity, the examples of forecasting of volcanic eruptions by seismic methods, and the description of seismic activity in the regions of dormant volcanoes.

This book will be essential for students and practitioners of volcanic seismology to understand the essential elements of volcanic eruptions.
Provides a comprehensive overview of seismic signals at different stages of volcano eruption.Discusses dozens of case histories from around the world to provide real-world applications.Illustrations accompany detailed descriptions of volcano eruptions alongside the theories involved.

A group of distinguished scientists contributes to the foundations of a new discipline in Earth sciences: earthquake thermodynamics and thermodynamics of formation of the Earth's interior structures. The predictive powers of thermodynamics are so great that those aspiring to model earthquake and the Earth's interior will certainly wish to be able to use the theory. Thermodynamics is our only method of understanding and predicting the behavior of many environmental, atmospheric, and geological processes. The need for Earth scientists to develop a functional knowledge of thermodynamic concepts and methodology is therefore urgent. Sources of an entropy increase the dissipative and self-organizing systems driving the evolution and dynamics of the Universe and Earth through irreversible processes. The non-linear interactions lead to the formation of fractal structures. From the structural phase transformations the important interior boundaries emerge.
Non-linear interactions between the defects in solids lead the authors to develop the physics of continua with a dense distribution of defects. Disclinations and dislocations interact during a slow evolution as well as during rapid dynamic events, like earthquakes. Splitting the dynamic processes into the 2D fault done and 3D surrounding space brings a new tool for describing the slip nucleation and propagation along the earthquake faults. Seismic efficiency, rupture velocity, and complexity of seismic source zone are considered from different points of view, fracture band earthquake model is developed on the basis of thermodynamics of line defects, like dislocations. Earthquake thermodynamics offers us a microscopic model of earthquake sources.
Physics of defects helps the authors decscribe and explain a number of precursory phenomena caused by the buildup of stresses. Anomalies in electric polarization and electromagnetic radiation prior to earthquakes are considered from this point of view. Through the thermodynamic approach, the authors arrive at the fascinating question of posssibility of earthquake prediction. In general, the Earth is considered here as a multicomponent system. Transport phenomena as well as wave propagation and shock waves are considered in this system subjected also to chemical and phase transformations.

Piton de la Fournaise and Karthala are both shield volcanoes in the southwest Indian Ocean. This publication summarizes the work done on these very active basaltic volcanoes. Piton de la Fournaise has a long history of scientific research and monitoring, with many data collected during recent eruptions. It is certainly one of the most studied volcanoes in the world. The work presented in this monograph includes geological, geophysical, geochemical and petrological aspects, but also studies on physical geography, natural hazards and the sociological and behavioural approaches.' The Karthala volcano may be less well known, but it serves as an interesting comparison to Piton de la Fournaise. Although situated close to the volcanoes of Hawaii, it differs from them by its more alkaline magmas and less frequent activity. It was also monitored for more than 25 years, producing extraordinary eruptions in recent years.

This volume presents different studies carried out on induced seismicity, both from experimental and theoretical viewpoints. Several examples of seismic activity induced by underground nuclear explosions, impoundment of artificial reservoirs, and mining activities are given and discussed. Another important subject which is covered is earthquakes induced by other large earthquakes. Further, tectonic stress release in the immediate vicinity of an underground nuclear explosion is treated. The release produces aftershocks of small magnitude, usually for several weeks, occurring a few kilometers within the shot point. This phenomenon is of importance in the context of monitoring a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

This book provides a comprehensive description of the volcanological, petrological and geochemical features of the Poas Volcano (Costa Rica), one of the most active volcanic systems in Central America and part of the Central America Volcanic Arc (CAVA). Poas Volcano hosts a unique sulfur lake, which actually is one of the world's most acidic lakes, and has experienced molten sulfur eruptions. Past investigations, current monitoring activities and planned programs of investigation into lessening of the volcanic hazard are reported here. Specific sections of the monograph will be devoted to the impact of this volcano on the social, agricultural and industrial activities in the area. Legends and popular traditions related to this volcano will be described in the last chapter to round up a complete scientific review on this unique volcanic system.