Santorini, a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea, exploded violently around 1500 BC, wiping out the entire Minoan civilization. A crater collapsed in Nyiragongo, Zaire, in 1977, unleashing a 40-mile-per-hour lava flow that killed 70 people. A mudflow rich in volcanic ash swept down the slopes of Nevado del Ruiz in 1985, killing 23,000 people in Colombia. Oral and written histories are filled with vivid tales of volcanic calamities, but why do volcanoes occur and how do they work ?
From the 7,200-degree-Fahrenheit core to the fragmented crust of the earth’s surface, Jacques Kornprobst and Christine Laverne explain all aspects of vulcanology in Living Mountains: How and Why Volcanoes Erupt. With Kornprobst’s lucid prose and Laverne’s forty-six vivid watercolors, readers can see and understand the workings of subduction zones and seafloor spreading, how different lavas form through the partial melting of the earth’s various rocks, and why some volcanoes ooze fluid ‘a’a lavas while others explode 30,000-foot clouds of ash and incendiary lava bombs. Written for a general audience, Living Mountains gives readers a deeper understanding of some of the most powerful forces humans have ever witnessed.
Extract : page 6 et 7 – page 24 et 25
FEATURES :
Author : Jacques KORNPROBST et Christine LAVERNE
Paperback: 102 pages
Size : 19 x 24 cm (7,5 x 9,5 inches)
Publisher : Moutain Press Publishing Company
Edition : 1st (January 2006)
Language : English
ISBN 0-87842-513-6Price: 18 U.S. dollars