Download or read book Krakatoa written by Simon Winchester and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2004-06-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world. He tells the story of the unrecognized genius who beat Darwin to the discovery of evolution; of Samuel Morse, his code and how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer and father of geology. In breathtaking detail he describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.

Download or read book The Day the World Exploded written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-05-06 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eruptions. Explosions. Shock waves. Tsunamis. The almighty explosion that destroyed the volcano island of Krakatoa was followed by an immense tsunami that killed more than thirty thousand people. The effects of the waves were felt as far away as France, and bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. Today, one hundred and twenty-five years after the volcano erupted in one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known, the name Krakatoa is still synonymous with disaster. In this illustrated account based on Simon Winchester's bestselling Krakatoa, the colossal explosion is brought to vivid life. From the ominous warnings leading up to the eruption to the wave of killings it provoked, here is an engaging and insightful look at what happened on the day the world exploded.

Download or read book The Krakatau Eruption written by Peter Benoit and published by Scholastic. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the destructive eruption of the Krakatau volcanic island in 1883, detailing the events leading up to the eruption, the devastation it caused, and how the eruption changed the Krakatau environment.

Download or read book Krakatau written by Ian W. B. Thornton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine months after the explosion, a French expedition searching for signs of life discovered a single spider that had crossed to the island on a balloon of silk. Life had returned to Krakatau. Scientists have been studying the island ever since.

Download or read book The Twenty One Balloons written by William Pene du Bois and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1986-05-06 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Newbery Medal Winner Professor William Waterman Sherman intends to fly across the Pacific Ocean. But through a twist of fate, he lands on Krakatoa, and discovers a world of unimaginable wealth, eccentric inhabitants, and incredible balloon inventions.Winner of the 1948 Newbery Medal, this classic fantasy-adventure is now available in a handsome new edition. "William Pene du Bois combines his rich imagination, scientific tastes, and brilliant artistry to tell astory that has no age limit."—The Horn Book

Download or read book The Eruption of Krakatoa written by Royal Society (Great Britain). Krakatoa Committee and published by . This book was released on 1888 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catastrophe written by David Keys and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2000-10-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a catastrophe without precedent in recorded history: for months on end, starting in A.D. 535, a strange, dusky haze robbed much of the earth of normal sunlight. Crops failed in Asia and the Middle East as global weather patterns radically altered. Bubonic plague, exploding out of Africa, wiped out entire populations in Europe. Flood and drought brought ancient cultures to the brink of collapse. In a matter of decades, the old order died and a new world—essentially the modern world as we know it today—began to emerge. In this fascinating, groundbreaking, totally accessible book, archaeological journalist David Keys dramatically reconstructs the global chain of revolutions that began in the catastrophe of A.D. 535, then offers a definitive explanation of how and why this cataclysm occurred on that momentous day centuries ago. The Roman Empire, the greatest power in Europe and the Middle East for centuries, lost half its territory in the century following the catastrophe. During the exact same period, the ancient southern Chinese state, weakened by economic turmoil, succumbed to invaders from the north, and a single unified China was born. Meanwhile, as restless tribes swept down from the central Asian steppes, a new religion known as Islam spread through the Middle East. As Keys demonstrates with compelling originality and authoritative research, these were not isolated upheavals but linked events arising from the same cause and rippling around the world like an enormous tidal wave. Keys's narrative circles the globe as he identifies the eerie fallout from the months of darkness: unprecedented drought in Central America, a strange yellow dust drifting like snow over eastern Asia, prolonged famine, and the hideous pandemic of the bubonic plague. With a superb command of ancient literatures and historical records, Keys makes hitherto unrecognized connections between the "wasteland" that overspread the British countryside and the fall of the great pyramid-building Teotihuacan civilization in Mexico, between a little-known "Jewish empire" in Eastern Europe and the rise of the Japanese nation-state, between storms in France and pestilence in Ireland. In the book's final chapters, Keys delves into the mystery at the heart of this global catastrophe: Why did it happen? The answer, at once surprising and definitive, holds chilling implications for our own precarious geopolitical future. Wide-ranging in its scholarship, written with flair and passion, filled with original insights, Catastrophe is a superb synthesis of history, science, and cultural interpretation.

Download or read book The Year Without Summer written by William K. Klingaman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Winchester's Krakatoa, The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816. In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season. Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by this event, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.

Download or read book Krakatoa Lighthouse written by Allan Baillie and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2009-03-02 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suddenly there was a trench across the beach, about ten meters away from the fishermen, where before there had been nothing but flat sand. The fishermen moved quickly away as the trench heaved grey ash across the sand. They sprinted when it hurled black rocks at them. Kerta didn't want to go to Krakatoa. He knows that a dark spirit, Orang Aljeh, is there and he is terrified he might wake it. But Kerta is there on the volcano, and the Ghost of Krakatoa has woken up. A powerful story of survival and loss based on the real-life events of the Krakatoa eruption in 1883. Winner of the 2010 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize 'This book is a marvel of precision and economy, stuffed to the gunnels with ideas, and brimming over with a dark energy...a masterclass in how to write...Krakatoa Lighthouse is that rare find: an exciting, moving story that keeps opening the doors to larger questions. Baillie puts the reader right there in the moment with stunningly accurate detail...yet we never feel the dead hand of history overwhelming us.' From the 2010 NSW Premier's Literary Award Judges' Report

Download or read book The Last Days of St Pierre written by Ernest Zebrowski and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the eruption of Mount Pelee in 1902, contrasting life on the island of Martinique before and after the disaster.

Download or read book When Humans Nearly Vanished written by Donald R. Prothero and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating true story of the explosion of the Mount Toba supervolcano--the Earth's largest eruption in the past 28 million years--and its lasting impact on Earth and human evolution Some 73,000 years ago, the huge dome of Mount Toba, in today's Sumatra, Indonesia, began to rumble. A deep vibration shook the entire island. Jets of steam and ash emanated from the summit, followed by an explosion louder than any sound heard by Homo sapiens since our species evolved on Earth. The eruption of the Toba supervolcano released the energy of a million tons of explosives; seven hundred cubic miles of magma spewed outward in an explosion forty times larger than the largest hydrogen bomb and more than a thousand times as powerful as the Krakatau eruption in 1883. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop by five to nine degrees. It took a full decade for Earth to recover to its pre-eruption temperatures. When Humans Nearly Vanished presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide. Human genes today show evidence of a "genetic bottleneck," an effect seen when a population of organisms becomes so small that their genetic diversity is greatly reduced. This group of survivors could be the ancestors of all humans alive today. Donald R. Prothero explores the geological and biological evidence supporting the Toba bottleneck theory; reveals how the explosion itself was discovered; and offers insight into how the world changed afterward and what might happen if such an eruption occurred today. Prothero's riveting account of this calamitous supervolcanic explosion is not to be missed.

Download or read book A Crack in the Edge of the World written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-10-10 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it—and almost certainly will cause it to strike again.

Download or read book Eruptions that Shook the World written by Clive Oppenheimer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it take for a volcanic eruption to really shake the world? Did volcanic eruptions extinguish the dinosaurs, or help humans to evolve, only to decimate their populations with a super-eruption 73,000 years ago? Did they contribute to the ebb and flow of ancient empires, the French Revolution and the rise of fascism in Europe in the 19th century? These are some of the claims made for volcanic cataclysm. Volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer explores rich geological, historical, archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records (such as ice cores and tree rings) to tell the stories behind some of the greatest volcanic events of the past quarter of a billion years. He shows how a forensic approach to volcanology reveals the richness and complexity behind cause and effect, and argues that important lessons for future catastrophe risk management can be drawn from understanding events that took place even at the dawn of human origins.

Download or read book Volcanic Eruptions and Their Repose Unrest Precursors and Timing written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-07-24 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volcanic eruptions are common, with more than 50 volcanic eruptions in the United States alone in the past 31 years. These eruptions can have devastating economic and social consequences, even at great distances from the volcano. Fortunately many eruptions are preceded by unrest that can be detected using ground, airborne, and spaceborne instruments. Data from these instruments, combined with basic understanding of how volcanoes work, form the basis for forecasting eruptionsâ€"where, when, how big, how long, and the consequences. Accurate forecasts of the likelihood and magnitude of an eruption in a specified timeframe are rooted in a scientific understanding of the processes that govern the storage, ascent, and eruption of magma. Yet our understanding of volcanic systems is incomplete and biased by the limited number of volcanoes and eruption styles observed with advanced instrumentation. Volcanic Eruptions and Their Repose, Unrest, Precursors, and Timing identifies key science questions, research and observation priorities, and approaches for building a volcano science community capable of tackling them. This report presents goals for making major advances in volcano science.

Download or read book Survival Tails Eruption at Krakatoa written by Katrina Charman and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals must team up to survive the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa in this heart-pounding fourth installment of Survival Tails, perfect for fans of the Ranger in Time and I Survived series. Parakeet Melati lives with the rest of her bird friends and family on the beautiful slopes of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa. While rumblings sometimes sound from deep within the earth, the birds live peacefully in their jungle. But when Melati is woken by tremors stronger than she's ever felt before, she realizes that her sleeping island volcano may not be sleeping any longer. Across a narrow stretch of water lives Budi, a rhinoceros, and his old friend Raja, the tiger king of the jungle. When Melati arrives with a dire warning that something is happening to Krakatoa, Raja believes the animals are safest in the jungle, but Budi disagrees. As ash rains down on the island and the earthquakes worsen, Raja must put aside his fears and put his trust in Budi. Otherwise, the animals of the jungle will never stand a chance against the mighty eruption of Krakatoa. With lush black-and-white illustrations and bonus facts that delve into the fascinating true story behind the eruption, Survival Tails: The Eruption of Krakatoa will both captivate and educate young readers.

Download or read book Waking the Giant written by Bill McGuire and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that the rapid climate change will provoke geophysical events, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.

Download or read book Dark of the Sun written by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following a series of catastrophes--both personal and planetary--the vampire Sangi-Ragozh desperately tries to reach sanctuary in the homeland he left centuries ago--a land now called Transylvania.