Adventures in Volcanoland

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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. They have helped provide us with a habitable planet, playing a key role in creating the atmosphere, oceans and land. 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 is living, breathing and changing and has been doing so 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.

Author Bio

Tamsin Mather MAE is a British Professor of Earth Sciences at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford and a Fellow of University College, Oxford.