VOLCANO COWBOYS

Volcanology is exposed as an art, a science, and an extreme sport.

Beginning with the months leading up to the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980, and concluding with the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, Time reporter Thompson presents all the major players and events in the most explosive ten years in the study of volcanoes. While this is not a scientific textbook on volcano types or natures, it includes a wealth of knowledge about the volatile and unpredictable “fire-breathing” creatures. By adeptly integrating the technical and dramatic sides of volcanology, Thompson presents the necessary science while highlighting the “cowboy” personalities astride it. The author focuses on the volcanologists of the US Geological Survey—brave and colorful experts whose curiosity, reason, and fear are constantly clashing. They battle for funding to study events they cannot predict and shouldn’t get too close to. Still, they arrive at field sites with their “hope chest” of volcano instruments, some wearing scars from being hit with chunks of lava, others standing in the path of danger, cameras poised. Thompson’s narrative is cinematic, with a small cast of major characters, long, suspenseful passages leading up to select moments of high drama, and “back to the lab” scenes of “field note” taking and contemplation. As years of research progress, volcanologists learn to better predict when a volcano’s “shaky shoulders” will shrug. And as they learn more, they continue to place bets among themselves on what time a creature will stir.

True volcano fans will find this riveting. Others can learn a bit of science while tracing these real-life cowboys’ adventures.