The Last Volcano: A Man a Romance and the Quest to Understand Nature's Most Magnificent Fury

About this book

Ranging from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Mount Pelee in the Caribbean from Bogoslof and Pavlov in Alaska to Sakurajima in Japan and finally to the massive volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa in HawaiiThe Last Volcano reveals the incredible journey of a man on a mission to understand the awesome power of volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes have fascinatedand terrifiedpeople for ages. They have destroyed cities and ended civilizations. John Dvorak the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms looks into the early scientific study of volcanoes and the life of the man who pioneered the field Thomas Jaggar. Educated at Harvard Jaggar went to the Caribbean after Mount Pelee exploded in 1902 killing more than 26 000 people. Witnessing the destruction and learning about the horrible deaths these people had suffered Jaggar vowed to dedicate himself to a study of volcanoes. What followed was fifty years of global travel to eruptions in Italy Alaska Central America Japan and the Pacific. In 1912 he built a small science station at the edge of a lake of molten lava at Kilauea volcano in the Hawaiian Islands with the goal of solving the mystery of why volcanoes erupt and how they could be predicted. Jaggar found something else at Kilauea: true love. She was Isabel Maydwell a widowed school teacher who came to Kilauea to restart her life. For more than twenty ears she and Jaggar ran the science station living in a small house at the edge of a high cliff that overlooked the lava lake. Maydwell would quickly becoming one of the worlds most astute observers of volcanic activity. Mixed with tales of myths and rituals as well as the authors own experiences and insight into volcanic activity The Last Volcano reveals the lure and romance of confronting nature in its most magnificent formthe edge of a volcanic eruption. 8 page B&W image insert