Before I obtained this book, I thought it impossible to write a worthwhile book on volcanoes for the general reader without cross-sections, remote sensing images and ground photographs. Having bought it, I discover that I was indeed correct.

If you are looking for an informal inquiry into volcanoes this book MAY be for you. I bought it expecting a scientific, entertaining, and educational book. The tone is much too informal for me. The author's attempts at humor fall short. BE FOREWARNED - this book contains not a single map, photograph, or sketch of the places or volcanoes you are reading about. Overall, it is like reading a comic book overview of volcanoes. Quite frankly, because of the lack of visual support it is a very frustrating read. If you want it, wait until you can buy a used copy.

What a wonderous tale of time and space travel. Sure the title says something about volcanoes, but how it is written adds much more depth. I look forward to reading it again.

Volcanic eruption has always happened in the past, present and future. They have created the Earth and what it looks like and will always do so. In countries today there is volcanic activity going on. When you read this book you wonder were it will happen and when.

DELIVERED BY AMAZON NEXT DAY. AUTHOR'S STYLE WAS BOTH CLEAR AND LYRICAL. HUGE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION ABOUT VOLCANOES AND THE MAKEUP OF THE UNIVERSE THAT CAN BE DERIVED FROM WHAT HAS BEEN OBSERVED IN THEM..

Interesting book that starts off by examining volcanos on earth before moving out to the solar system. Particularly Mars and Venus.

In case anyone else is wondering, this is mostly NOT a book about "supervolcanoes" as such — places like Yellowstone that have had huge explosions hundreds of times bigger than "normal" volcanoes. Yellowstone does get a chapter, though -- and some of it explains why Yellowstone is not ready to explode any day now and probably wouldn't end civilization even if it did. The rest of the book is about volcanoes that are super, in the sense of wildly interesting and sometimes extraterrestrial (literally). The author has written generous chapters full of case histories of volcanoes on Earth, some of them fairly ordinary but many of them peculiar in some way -- such as Ol Doinyo Lengai, which produces very odd and dangerously fast-running lava full of carbonatites. (I won't try to explain those here.) Then he examines undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. Further chapters explore volcanism on the Moon, Mars, and Venus, and includes a lot of information about their geography and geology, much of it discovered only recently. The last chapter discusses volcanism on planetary moons (most spectacularly Io), cold planets, and other points of interest. The whole is full of contagious enthusiasm for all the weird and wonderful things around us that we really don't know enough about.

Greatly appreciated the writers approach to the topic. Details were in depth without getting cligged with too much data. Fascinating seeing the world through the eyes of experts. Thanks much