Waubonsee Community College

Volcanoes, encounters through the ages, David M. Pyle

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-220) and index

mapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

Volcanoes

bibliography

957507973

David M. Pyle

encounters through the ages

For centuries, volcanic eruptions have captured our imaginations. Whether as signposts to an underworld, beacons to ancient mariners, or as an extraordinary manifestation of the natural world, volcanoes have intrigued many people, who have left records of their encounters in letters, reports and diaries and through sketches and illustrations. This book tells the stories of volcanic eruptions around the world, using original illustrations and first-hand accounts to explore how our understanding of volcanoes has evolved through time. Written accounts include Pliny's description of the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius, stories recounted by seventeenth-century sea-farers, and reports of expeditions made by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural historians, including Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin. Illustrations range from fragments of scrolls, buried in the great eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, to Athanasius Kircher's extraordinarily detailed sketches, made in the seventeenth century, to the spectacular London sunsets caused by Krakatoa's eruption in 1883. They also include the first photograph of a volcanic eruption and twenty-first-century imaging of Santorini. These varied and compelling accounts enrich our perspective on current studies of volcanoes and challenge us to think about how we might use our contemporary understanding of volcanology to prepare for the next big eruption

Foreword -- Introduction. Volcanoes and the heat of the earth ; Plate tectonics ; Oceanic ridges and continental rifts ; A volcanic arc ; Measuring volcanoes -- 1. Volcanoes in early accounts. Hades ; Volcanoes of the Atlantic Ocean ; The Mediterranean ; The sixteenth century ; Athanasius Kircher -- 2. Vesuvius awakes. December 1631 ; Etna, 1669 ; William Hamilton ; 1817 eruption ; 1834 eruption ; 1906 eruption ; Vesuvius and popular culture ; The first volcanic photograph -- 3. The origins of lava. Polygonal rocks ; Melting rocks ; Field examples -- 4. Europeans explore the world's volcanoes. Pirates and burning islands ; Eighteenth-century explorers ; Nineteenth-century explorers ; Hawaii -- 5. World-changing eruptions. Appearing and disappearing islands ; Jorullo and Parícutin ; Laki, 1783 ; Tambora, 1815 ; Krakatoa, 1883 -- 6. Living with volcanoes. Montserrat ; St. Vincent ; May 1902 ; The destruction of St. Pierre, Martinique -- 7. Detecting the next volcanic eruption. Santorini, Greece ; Why can't we predict volcanic eruptions? ; What if there was a supervolcanic eruption? -- Gazetteer of eruptions