Here is an exciting and informative guide to the violent eruptions and tremors that shape our planet. Superb color photographs of lava flows and clouds of ash, plus specially built 3-D models, offer a unique "eyewitness" view of volcanoes and earthquakes, from the forces that drive them to the devastation they cause. See streams of red-hot lava, the earliest seismographs, rocks that float in water, the bodies of people killed by the great eruption of Vesuvius, and pools of bubbling mud. Learn how animals can detect earthquakes before people, what causes a fire fountain, how buildings are made to withstand earthquakes, where to hide during an earthquake, and why the earth shakes. Discover how the Mercalli scale works, how new islands are formed, why the sands of Hawaii are black, how volcanoes affect the ozone layer, what makes magma explode, what a pyrolcastic flow is, and much, much more!