Tamsin Mather is the author of the new book Adventures in Volcanoland: What Volcanoes Tell Us About the World and Ourselves. She is a professor of earth sciences at the University of Oxford.
Q: What inspired you to write Adventures in Volcanoland, and how was the book’s title chosen?
A: I didn’t think I would ever write a book, but I have always enjoyed telling stories, and when I would go to give public talks people always wanted to know more about my travels to volcanic places as well as the science.
Reading books like Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane really inspired me in terms of their beautiful and intimate descriptions of places and landscapes and the weaving in of history and human viewpoints and thinking. I wanted to do something along these lines, but very much as a scientist.
The catalyst was my now-agent, Matt Turner, who contacted me early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Being locked down and unable to travel, it seemed the perfect moment to relive some of my previous adventures in my imagination and write them down.
The book’s title is a nod to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which involves underground adventures but also many puzzles and things that take the heroine and the reader out of themselves.
I also liked the idea of using an ambiguous term like “Volcanoland” as it’s specific and non-specific at the same time. This seemed right for me as each volcano is individually located and important to the local landscape and environment but their individual and collective effects can also reach out across the world and in fact the universe, as we explore in the book.
Q: The writer Olivia Campbell said of the book, “Deeply researched and compellingly composed, it’s a luminous literary journey that is at once intimate and galactic, timeless and urgent.” What do you think of that description?
A: I was blown away when I read this review. I felt that she had truly got what I wanted to do with the book.
Volcanoes exist on so many different scales in space and time. Their eruptions can play out in seconds but brew for millennia. Their activity can range from seeping gases out of pores in the soil, too small to be made out other than really close up, to explosions so big that they sink craters tens of kilometres across.
In terms of human thinking, volcanoes can root you to a spot and hold you in a moment but also challenge us to imagine their operations across the solar system and the eons of geological time. The description of the book as a “luminous literary journey” were lovely words to read, especially as a scientist, and I am blushing again reading them now!
Q: What do you think are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about volcanoes?
A: I think most people understandably have a very specific picture in their head when they hear the word volcano. Usually this is a cone-shaped mountain or hill with red hot rocks or ash exploding from its summit or lava flowing down its flanks.
Many volcanoes are of course like this, but there are also many different types with some actually enormous craters rather than mountains, and most of the world’s volcanoes are hidden under the sea.
For good reasons, the destructive side of volcanoes gets the most press, but they can be constructive too.
Part of what fascinates me is how volcanoes are and have been a key part of making our planet the beautiful and, to our knowledge, uniquely habitable place we know today. Without volcanoes, our present-day atmosphere would likely not be how it is and would not have kept in balance maintaining stable enough conditions for life like us to evolve.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: I hope they share a little of my love and fascination with all things volcanic and also learn some new and surprising things about the Earth and its incredible inner workings.
I also hope it reminds people how special our world is and highlights the potency of our species as a geological force even when compared to volcanoes. Through our industry, we now have the power to change the planet, and with power comes responsibility.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My university work keeps me pretty busy, but I am working with a colleague on an illustrated book on volcanoes for younger readers. A book I helped on about communicating disaster preparedness for children is also going to be translated and distributed in North Korea, which is exciting!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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