Super Volcanoes: What they Reveal About Earth And The Worlds Beyond, by Robin George Andrews

Typically, volcanoes are viewed as a negative aspect of existence, as a threat to the well-being of people. This book seeks to do something unusual, and that is focus on the more positive side of volcanoes, namely the way in which they provide for a way for earth as a planet to retain heat and provide rich resources and crops for people to enjoy and grow. The author, it should be noted, does not merely look at supervolcanoes like the Yellowstone caldera (which is discussed here, it must be admitted), or even volcanoes on the earth’s surface, but goes out of his way to talk about volcanoes under the sea and on the moon and other planets and moons within the solar system. This is indeed a book that focuses on the volcanology that appeals to those who find volcanoes to be a negative matter or who fail to see the broad importance of volcanoes as being able to provide information as well as help to the well-being of worlds. Efforts to better understand what is going on beneath the earth’s surface or beneath the surface of other planetary and lunar bodies is by no means a simple area, and for those who enjoy the mixture of geology with astronomy and oceanography, this book is easy to enjoy and appreciate.

This book is almost 300 pages and it is divided into 8 chapters that deal with fairly broad subjects. The author begins with a discussion of an early climb of Mount Fuji that he undertook in Japan as a young person as well as an introduction to his own desire to marry a love of volcanoes with journalism. This is followed by chapters that focus on different elements of volcanology. The first is a discussion of the field’s origins and the importance of Hawaii’s volcanoes in establishing America’s own research in the field (1). After this, the author talks about Yellowstone and the possibility that it will never again lead to a supervolcano as it has so often in the past (2). This is followed by a discussion of an unusual, even unique, volcano in Tanzania and what it tells us about the Great Rift Valley and the formation of new continents (3). After this the author turns his attention beyond the familiar to look at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and how it was uncovered by those who were able to look beyond the hostility to continental drift that existed at the time (4). After this, the author discusses various volcanoes and their role in outer space. This begins with a look at the moon (5), whose volcanology has much to say about the early period of earth’s history. This is followed by a discussion of Mars (6), whose large volcanoes ended up tipping over the planet and changing its orbit. After this comes a discussion of the inferno of Venus and how it was that the planet’s conditions led to irreversible (or so it seems) greenhouse warming (7). Finally, the author ends with a discussion of the strange geology of Io and that of the giant planets beyond the asteroid belt (8). The book ends with a discussion of geology as being a matter of time travel, an attempt to understand the past, as well as acknowledgements, notes, illustration credits, and an index..

While this book is an interesting one and its subject matter is certainly enjoyable to read, there are definitely some flaws with the work as a whole. For one, the author seems addicted to writing purple prose and using the same sort of fancy words for “steep” or other concepts as a way of showing off his large vocabulary. Perhaps the author wants to vary his words, as it might seem a bit repetitive to keep on discussing the steepness of volcanoes. The author wants and tries to be a great popularizer of science but while he certainly aims at a journalism approach that is similar to someone like a John McPhee, he doesn’t have the same popular touch of being able to turn popular explanations of geology (in particular for his beloved volcanoes) to the sorts of books that receive and are worth the biggest attention, at least not yet. Perhaps someday he will get there, and we will see this book as part of a growing process that was necessary to help the author develop his voice and overcome some of the struggles that he had in writing to the general public in ways that were both scientifically accurate with the latest research in the field as well as accessible to those who are knowledgeable and interested in scientific fields but not possessed of the jargon that one finds in professional audiences and in their papers and presentations where cutting edge research is revealed.