Defending society against natural hazards is a high-stakes game of chance against nature, involving tough decisions. How should a developing nation allocate its budget between building schools for towns without ones or making existing schools earthquake-resistant? Does it make more sense to build levees to protect against floods, or to prevent development in the areas at risk? Would more lives be saved by making hospitals earthquake-resistant, or using the funds for patient care? What shou...

A global history of the climate catastrophe caused by the Tambora eruptionWhen Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it unleashed the most destructive wave of extreme weather the world has witnessed in thousands of years. The volcano’s massive sulfate dust cloud enveloped the Earth, cooling temperatures and disrupting major weather systems for more than three years. Communities worldwide endured famine, disease, and civil unrest on a catastrophic scale.

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it changed, the dawn of modern v...

A riveting history of the Mount St. Helens eruption that will "long stand as a classic of descriptive narrative" (Simon Winchester).For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, sightseers, and nearby residents listened anxiously to rumblings in Mount St. Helens, part of the chain of western volcanoes fueled by the 700-mile-long Cascadia fault. Still, no one was prepared when an immense eruption took the top off of the mountain and laid waste to hundreds of sq...

For centuries, Californians and the Japanese have known that they were at risk of catastrophic earthquakes, and prepared accordingly. But when a violent 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti in 2010, hardly anyone knew the island nation was even at risk for disaster, and, tragically, no one was prepared. Over 300,000 people died as buildings that had never been designed to withstand such intense shaking toppled over and crushed their inhabitants. Now, scientists warn that it won't be long before a s...

A revised and updated comprehensive examination of the supervolcanic eruption of Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia over 75,000 years ago, and how it changed human genetic history by causing a population bottleneck, written by best-selling author Marie D. Jones and her father, the late geophysicist Dr. John M. Savino, Ph.D. The book describes what a supervolcano is, how they form, where they are located across the globe, and which ones may be ready to erupt. Will Yellowstone be next? Features a fi...

Earthquakes and volcano eruptions are natural disasters that are best faced prepared. Through this picture book, a child goes through multi-sensory learning that makes it easier to understand the intensity of quakes and volcanoes. With a picture book, a child gets to hear the stories, see the pictures, feel and even smell the pages. These create memories that make lessons stick. Grab a copy today!

**The journey to the centre of the earth is a voyage like no other we can imagine.Over 3,000 km below the earth's surface an extraordinary inner world the size of Mars awaits us.Dive through the molten iron of the outer core and eventually you will reach a solid sphere - an iron-clad world held within a metal sea and unattached to anything above.At the earth's core is the history of our planet written in temperature and pressure, crystals and minerals . . .**

Without physics, modern life would not exist. Instead of electric light, we would read by the light of candles. We couldn't build skyscrapers. We could not possibly bridge rivers, much less build a jet or interplanetary craft. Computers and smartphones would be unimaginable. Physics is concerned with the most fundamental aspects of matter and energy and how they interact to make the physical universe work. In accessible language and with explanatory graphics and visual aids, this book intr...

John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early scientific study of volcanoes and the life of the man who pioneered the field, Thomas Jaggar. Educated at Harvard, Jaggar went to the Caribbean after Mount Pelee exploded in 1902, killing more than 26,000 people. Witnessing the destruction and learning about the horrible deaths these people had suffered, Jaggar vowed to dedicate himself to a study of volcanoes. In 1912, he built a small science station at the edge...

A "gripping" **look at the massive disasters that could strike at any moment, from a New York Times–bestselling author ( San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle).Far beneath the earth's surface, great tectonic plates grind against one another with incredible pressure that must—inevitably—be released. Earthquakes manifest with little warning, upending buildings, shattering infrastructure, and unleashing devastating tsunamis. In ...

This concise, accessible, market-leading textbook brings together the wide-ranging fundamentals students need to understand rocks and minerals, and shows them how they relate to the broader Earth, materials and environmental sciences. Designed specifically for one-semester courses, it is beautifully illustrated to explain the key concepts in mineralogy and petrology. This edition has been fully updated based on classroom experience, and new features include a completely new chapter providi...