BOOK REVIEW

Tom Pfeiffer and Ingrid Smet: Volcano Discoveries:A Photographic Journey Around the WorldNew Holland Publishers, 2015. Hardcover: 240 pages ISBN-13: 978-1921517358

Dávid Karátson1

Accepted: 29 June 2017# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

Everyonewho travels to or works at volcanoes is fascinatedby the unbelievable colorful world of Earth’s volcanoes andvolcanic landscapes. Everyone takes “his” or “her” photo onthe volcano, which becomes “my volcano” in memory. Manypeople were there, but I was also there! Now, Tom Pfeiffer,volcano lover, volcanologist, tour guide, and photographer,brings the impressive volcanic scenes to a broad audiencevia hundreds of selected volcano photos from all over theworld, in his and his partner Ingrid Smet’s Volcano

Discoveries: A Photographic Journey Around the World(New Holland Publisher, 2015). As the main author puts itsimply, “volcanoes are a rather easy subject”, and “volcanophotography really is mostly about being at the right place atthe right time”. In fact, Pfeiffer was there: he was visiting orclimbing the most famous volcanoes of the world as manytimes as was necessary, in order to take unsurpassable photosof volcanic eruptions, related phenomena, or just simplyamazing volcanic landscapes.

Holding a PhD degree in volcanology, Pfeiffer considershimself an amateur photographer, but, obviously, the way hetakes photos is greatly helped by his profession. He alwayslooks at, and captures, what he needs to look at, and the resultis a unique set of the thousand faces of Earth’s volcanoes. Thewriter of this review has also visited a number of the volca-noes on Pfeiffer’s photographs. After taking one’s own pic-tures, it is easy to think “though I am an amateur, my photo isreally beautiful, is not it?” Whether or not Pfeiffer is an ama-teur, there is no question that his shots are difficult if notimpossible to improve upon. Even the simplest stories, suchas the well-known eruptions of Stromboli, tell something new,and basically every aspect that he captures adds to the com-mon view of the target volcano. Not surprisingly, this year, forinstance, two photos from Pfeiffer’s endless collection ap-peared in the 2017 IAVCEI calendar (and there could havebeen many more).

As for his photography, the shots are rarely about effects ortricks, rather they deliver the personal feeling of being there.Most of them, as Pfeiffer explains, “were taken at fairly easilyaccessible volcanoes and under conditions that did not involvehigh risk”. However, it is easy to see that this could not havebeen so simple, and Pfeiffer always did his best to share his“being there” feeling: during the night, at peep of dawn, in thecompanion of local peasants, or among other volcano loversadmiring the landscape. Many photos on volcanoes and their

Editorial responsibility: K. Németh

* Dávid Karátsondkarat@ludens.elte.hu

1 Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary

Bull Volcanol (2017) 79:61 DOI 10.1007/s00445-017-1143-7

eruptions were taken from a distance, but there are severalclose to the “fire”, or captured from the air, overall giving afantastic diversity.

In stucture, the 240-page-long book begins with an intro-duction about volcanoes in history and plate tectonics, then, itis divided into seven chapters on volcanic countries or re-gions. At the end, one can find a glossary. The lengths of theseven volcano chapters are “weighted” by the number of theincluded volcanoes, first in and around Europe (Iceland, Italyand Greece—perhaps, starting with the Mediterranean wouldhave been more logical), then in the Rift Valley of East Africa.Further on, a hot spot chapter (on the Canary and HawaiiIslands) is followed by the circum-Pacific Ring of Fire (focus-sing on Central America and the Southwest Pacific: Japan,New Zealand, and some islands), and finally the book displaysthe volcanoes of Indonesia (mostly Java).

The presentation of the above content is fine, and thephotos of the selected volcanoes are meaningful without anywords. But the photos are richly accompanied by captionswith pertinent information. The style of the text is basic, sinceit is intended for the widest possible audience. However, thisaspect is somewhat at the expense of scientific engagement,which in my opinion could have been higher. I understand thatdiscussing content too complexly is contrary to the intendedwide distribution of a photo album. But anyone who reads thetext, for example on the fundamentals of plate tectonics, willnot be threatened by reading something more complex andmore realistic. What do I mean? For instance, for two conver-gent plates, one reads that in addition to subduction “it canalso happen that both plates at a convergent margin consist ofcontinental lithosphere”, and “collision of two continents will(…) result in the formation of a massive mountain range as thetectonic forces deform both plates”. However, in between thecollided plates once there was a subducted oceanic plate,resulting in volcanoes that were eroded since then (i.e., thecase of the Alps). Whereas this may be a matter of taste, Imissed very much at least a minor introduction to volcaniceruptions. This is not replaced by the glossary, or some expla-nations in the text. Most importantly, I found the presentationof volcanic edifices rather poor. The listed edifices includefissure vent, shield volcano, stratovolcano, and cinder cone,with accompanying sketches. But these drawings are too sim-plistic and something more likely found in a children’s book.They are not to scale, and thus, one may think that a shield

volcano and a cinder cone, for example, are of the same size.Lava domes and calderas as edifice types are missing. As forthe latter, although one can find an explanation in the glossary:a caldera is “a large crater (…) formed by the collapse of theroof of a magma chamber emptied by large explosive erup-tions”, what about Kilauea or Piton de la Fournaise, whichalso have calderas but were created differently? Moreover,as for “stratovolcano”, I would have used at least “composite-or stratovolcano”.

At the end of the introduction, the reader finds a useful loca-tion map of the volcanoes included in the book. Logically, mostof them are related to plate boundaries. Unfortunately, except forone example (Shishaldin in the Aleutians), neither North norSouth America is covered, which I find a pity, even if there isan amazing collection on Central America. In most regions, theselection is restricted to the (very) active volcanoes, namely tothose which erupt frequently. Perhaps this accounts for whysome very famous ones such as Mount St. Helens have alsobeen omitted. St. Helens is mentioned three times in thetext, for example, the eruption of Santa Maria (Guatemala)was “similar to the famous eruption of Mount St. Helens”,so why not display Mount St. Helens itself? Moreover Ithink that some other iconic though dormant volcanoes,e.g., Mt. Fuji, Puy de Dôme, or Laacher See, should havealso been added. As for Vesuvius (which is presentedthrough very nice and informative photos), it is importantthat the ancient Somma volcano collapsed not only duringthe AD 79 eruption, but also several times before—subsequent,repeated caldera formation that also occurred at Santorini orKrakatau is something again that could have been presentedeven for the wider public.

The book also contains a list of suggestions for further read-ing and an index. The bibliography with only 14 items—9books and 5 websites—is surprisingly limited, and I suggest itbe enlarged in a subsequent edition.

Overall, Volcano Discoveries is a nicely designed book thatpresents significant knowledge on volcanoes in a balancedmanner. For those considering visiting any of the famous vol-canoes of the Earth, the marvelous photos here will surelyassist with decisions. But I wish there had beenmore logisticalinformation on how to get to the volcanoes shown. The price(US$30, hardcover) makes this book an absolute steal, so Iwarmly recommend the photo album of Tom Pfeiffer andIngrid Smet to all volcanophiles.

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