The best Earthquakes & Volcanoes books: crowd reviews

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The British Isles were essentially the first place in the world to have a true stratigraphic map, a story told in the book The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester

It also triggered a 'nuclear' (without the radiation) winter and led to crop failures and mass starvation. The resultant social upheaval in Indonesia led to a Muslim take over. Simon Winchester wrote an extremely readable account of this in 'Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded.' I highly recommend the book and the author.

<u>Volcanoes in Human History</u> was something I enjoyed reading in college. The author also wrote Earthquakes in Human History, equally as interesting!

Started reading this book about Karkatoa and I LOVE IT!

Absolutely fascinating and I love the way it’s written. Exactly the style of writing I love. If I wrote a book, i’d write it like this.

The one that comes to mind: The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

There is an outstanding book on the mountain by Dick Thompson called <em>Volcano Cowboys</em>. It bounces around a bit, but a majority of the book detailing the USGS investigating the build up before the eruption and the aftermath. In addition to interviews, Thompson had full access to their field notes and reports. You get a great understanding of how hard it is to be predictive with what was then a largely observational science. And the description of what happened to Dave Johnson at Coldwater II is heartbreaking (exactly right place, exactly wrong time.)

I bought this book after a vacation to Iceland and found it to be very informative. It's well written and has good maps. I think it could be a good starting point for you.

My book Earthquake Science is currently free on Kindle (until Oct. 20).

Aimed at kids age 8-14, the book makes advanced scientific concepts fun and interesting, illustrated with photos and pictures. At the end, hands-on activities bring the science to life: learn how to be safer in an earthquake, experiment with earthquake-safe construction using marshmallows and jello, and even build your own seismometer!

Earthquake Science

$3.99 on Kindle, $6.99 in black and white paperback, $12.99 in color paperback

Volume 4 in the In Depth Science series!

Slowly, the tectonic plates are moving. Somewhere deep beneath your feet, the rocks in the Earth are squeezing. Someday they might suddenly break and slip, sending waves of energy through the rock, shaking the ground, and knocking over buildings.

Scientists and engineers work together to figure out which areas are at risk of earthquakes, to build buildings that will not fall down, and to design special warning systems. If you understand how earthquakes work, you can be prepared, too.

I am an earthquake scientist whose career has been focused on understanding why earthquakes happen where they do, and how slip happens on faults. This book, targeted at kids age 8-14, contains college-level science, illustrated with detailed photographs and diagrams. Buy it for your kids, and read it yourself. The next time you see an earthquake in the news, you will understand more about how and why it happened, and what to expect.

I just published the fourth volume in the In Depth Science series - earth science for kids!

<strong>Earthquake Science</strong>

As an earthquake scientist myself, I found writing this book more challenging than I expected. Perhaps I am too close to the subject: it was hard for me to leave things out. I wanted to illuminate why earthquakes happen, from tectonic stresses to the propagation of groundshaking through the Earth. I wanted to talk about the roles of geologists and engineers in keeping people safe. And I wanted to give children tools to make themselves safer. In the end, I compromised: the book is a little longer than the first three, and supplemented with even more illustrations.

One thing that this book does NOT do is focus on death and destruction. As a mother, I am uncomfortable with exposing my kids to too much violence. The book talks about how earthquakes can be damaging and frightening, but does not contain extended discussions of earthquake aftermath. I want to educate kids, not give them nightmares!

Please take a look at this or the other books in the series, and let me know what you think.

One book I found particularly interesting was: Eruptions that shook the world by Oppenheimer https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eruptions-Shook-World-Clive-Oppenheimer/dp/0521641128 I am sure you can get it cheaper elsewhere, but it gives a good background to eruptions.

I'm a climate change skeptic; I should probably mention that off the bat.

But ecological disturbances (droughts, epidemics, etc.) often trigger mass migrations, which in turn trigger wars when people migrate somewhere where there are already people.

Interestingly, there's a fair amount of evidence that they can also trigger fundamentalist movements. In Krakatoa the author talks about how Islamic fundamentalism took off in Indonesia right after the famous volcano. A lot of people's lives had been completely destroyed and they were looking for something hard to hold onto.

There is a wonderful book about this called (appropriately) Krakatoa by Simon Winchester full of interesting facts and anecdotes about this remarkable event.

I took Alistair Brown's class and his textbook has since been an invaluable tool. He doesn't cover much with Kingdom but you'll learn that stuff through trial and error anyway. It's an excellent high level intro to seismic interpretation.

*edited to add that you should join us on /r/geologycareers for questions like this.

This might not be in the same vein, but check out Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. It's a book on the legendary volcano explosion in the late 19th century that temporarily disrupted global weather pattern in that year.

I enjoyed Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester.

Also, and this one isn't strictly geo, but it's awesome, The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. Basically a history of the periodic table. And it's really funny too.

Marc Reisner (Cadillac Desert) wrote his last book while dying of cancer. It didn't appear in print until three years after his death.

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Place-Californias-Unsettling-Fate/dp/0142003832

Simon Winchester is really good. I enjoyed Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.