Fundamentals of Physical Volcanology

Fundamentals of Physical Volcanology is a comprehensive overview of the processes that control when and how volcanoes erupt. Understanding these processes involves bringing together ideas from a number of disciplines, including branches of geology, such as petrology and geochemistry; and aspects of physics, such as fluid dynamics and thermodynamics. This book explains in accessible terms how different areas of science have been combined to reach our current level of knowledge of volcanic systems. It includes an introduction to eruption types, an outline of the development of physical volcanology, a comprehensive overview of subsurface processes, eruption mechanisms, the nature of volcanic eruptions and their products, and a review of how volcanoes affect the environment. Fundamentals of Physical Volcanology is essential reading for undergraduate students in earth science.

Dr Elisabeth Parfitt is currently a Honorary Research Fellow at Lancaster University, UK, and has previously been a faculty member of the University of Leeds, UK and the State University of New York at Buffalo in the USA.

Professor Lionel Wilson heads the Planetary Science Research Group in the Environmental Science Department at Lancaster University, UK, where he has worked for the past 37 years, and is a visiting Professor at the University of Hawai’i and Brown University in the USA.

Both have focused their research on the physical processes that control volcanic eruptions.