Volcanoes

by David A. Rothery

Volcanoes are spectacular and can have devastating effects. As well as the obvious death and destruction surrounding an erupting volcano, the largest eruptions can change the world's climate. This practical guide should enable you to discover more about the mysteries behind volcanic activity.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2001

About the author

David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the School of Physical Sciences within the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics at the Open University.

Reviews

[JMJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesus wept. I’d say I’m fairly interested in volcanoes and this book nearly killed off all passion.

What starts out as a seemingly gentle introduction wuickly ramps into monotonous geological speel that goes on for the rest of the book. The chapters are logically organised overall but the sub-divisions of chapters seem to follow very little progressional order (there was even one sub-heading with subsequent chapters that simply referred back to something he’d already said twp chapters ago...). The facts are given quite bluntly (which is not necessarily bad) but they are so poorly put together that they dampen all enthusiasm. After roughly Chapter 5 the author simply starts referring readers back to previous chapters as though he has run out of anything new or insightful to mention. The last contention I had is that there seemed (to me) in part to be the author positively revelling in the ways people have died being near volcanoes.

Would not recommend to either the experienced or inexperienced reader, there must be plenty of alternatives that don’t suck the life out of Vulcanology.

[Steve Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this one. It didn't teach me everything about volcanoes, but I wouldn't expect that from a book of this size. Overall, a good introduction to the subject that 'scratched an itch'.