Description
At once terrifyingly destructive and awe-inspiringly beautiful, volcanoes have long fascinated humankind. From Vesuvius and Etna to Krakatau and Mount Saint Helen’s, these molten rock- and ash-spewing geysers have destroyed whole cities and countless lives, and altered the course of history. Yet our understanding of volcanoes on Earth—and throughout the celestial world—remains maddeningly incomplete.
With Alien Volcanoes, Rosaly M. C. Lopes and Michael W. Carroll offer a dynamic tour of volcanic activity across the solar system. Through eight gracefully written chapters laced with gripping photographs and stunning artwork, Lopes and Carroll survey the complete spectrum of volcanism in time and location, from the solar system’s origin to the modern era and from the familiar shield volcanoes of the terrestrial worlds to the bizarre superchilled geysers on distant ice moons. In the process, they entertain the possibility of hidden lakes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, discuss the potential effects of greenhouse gases on Neptune’s moon Triton, reconstruct the last moments of life for Pompeiians in the face of an erupting Mount Vesuvius, and explain how a 4,000-mile-long river of lava could have once flowed freely across the plains of Venus.
Richly illustrated with original paintings supplemented by NASA and European Space Agency photographs, Alien Volcanoes advances our knowledge of volcanoes on other heavenly bodies, enhances our ability to comprehend how they came into being on Earth, and describes how we might better predict the impact of future eruptions.Reviews
"Michael Carroll and Rosaly Lopes have pooled their extensive knowledge and unlimited imagination to bring the volcanic vistas of other worlds to life in these pages, in all the colors of fire and ice. Based on the understanding gained from studying the likes of Vesuvius and Krakatau, Alien Volcanoes explores the eruptive forces at work throughout the solar system, from the massive Olympus Mons on Mars and the volcano-covered surface of Venus to the volcanic moons of Jupiter and Saturn."—Dava Sobel, author of Longitude"Alien Volcanoes is wonderful. The mixture of text, paintings, and photos from NASA satellites is stunning . . . A groundbreaking book for the public to understand the fascinating facts and historical context of volcanoes, here and in our solar system."—Kimberly Weaver, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Violent Universe
Author Information
Rosaly M. C. Lopes is a principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the investigation scientist for the Cassini radar instrument. She is an expert on terrestrial and planetary volcanism and the author of The Volcano Adventure Guide, Volcanic Worlds, and Io after Galileo. Michael W. Carroll is a science writer and artist specializing in astronomical imagery. His work has appeared in Time, National Geographic, Popular Science, Astronomy, and a host of other popular and scholarly publications.
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