Jelle Zeilinga de Boer (1934–2016)

A companion volume to Earthquakes in Human History, with a slightly different tone. Earthquakes considered individual earthquakes, while Volcanoes in Human History is more often about volcanic zones than individual eruptions. As in Earthquakes the authors’ intent is to expose liberal arts students to geological realities, especially how volcanic eruptions can affect history and culture long after the lava has cooled. The authors use the analogy of a plucked string, where the initial vibrations are large but it takes some time for the smaller waves to finally die out.

After a brief discussion of volcanology, the book’s second chapter concerns the Hawaiian Islands. The myths of the native people concerning the volcano goddess Pele are treated, but so is the role of the islands in establishing plate tectonics and mantle hot spots. Chapter 3 is about Thera and its potential role in ending the Minoan Empire. I’m a little annoyed at the authors casual dismissal of the Egyptological date for the eruption between 1504 to 1450 BC based on pottery sequencing; they prefer a between 1690 and 1620 BC based on ice cores and tree rings. The bothersome statement is “Rather than relying on such imprecise information, we should accept the globally correlated scientific data”. This implies that Egyptology is unscientific and imprecise; and the authors note in a footnote that the ice core and tree ring data is assumed to relate to Thera, not definitely linked.

The famous (although the authors note there have been many others) eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD is next. It occurs to me that all the volcanoes in Europe that erupted between Classical times and the start of the scientific revolution were a little strange on a world scale. Thera, Vesuvius, Stromboli, Volcano, Etna, and the Iceland volcanoes are all quite different from those on the Pacific Rim. This unfamiliarity may have hampered geology in general, since it took some time for geologists to recognize volcanoclastic deposits like ignimbrite for what they were. The authors also miss a bet; the small Italian town of Pozzuoli is mentioned as the site of the Temple of Serapis, used by Charles Lyell to demonstrate sea level changes, and also as the site of the martyrdom of Saint Januarius, who is still invoked when Vesuvius threatens. However, it is not also described as the source of pozzolan, a volcanic ash which, when mixed with calcium oxide (lime) and water undergoes a “pozzolan reaction”, a key step in making concrete. The Romans knew about this stuff and used pozzolan concrete for the dome of the Pantheon and the docks and breakwaters at Ostia (pozzolan concrete is “hydraulic”; it will cure underwater).

The great fissure eruption of Lakagigar in 1783 killed half the cattle in Iceland, three quarters of the sheep and horses, and good chunk of the population. The authors estimate 50 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 17 million tons each of hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride. Crops were affected throughout the northern hemisphere, and the Mississippi froze as far south as New Orleans that winter. Benjamin Franklin suggested the unusual weather might be connected to the eruption.

The Tambora and Krakatau eruptions come next; both have already been discussed in other reviews (although the authors suggest that the Tambora eruption, in addition to all the other grief, also contributed to the deadliness of the worldwide cholera epidemic from 1816 to 1823 – the weather stress from the eruption may have pushed things over the edge.

The Mt. Pelée eruption of 1902 gets a political link, doubtless appreciated by the students this book was intended for. One of the reasons the town of St. Pierre wasn’t evacuated was an election was scheduled for May 11th. The Socialist party had made a strong showing in the preliminary balloting, and the governor of the island supposed didn’t want to risk a Socialist victory by depopulating the island’s largest city. He went to St. Pierre to reassure the locals that there was no risk, and died with 30000 other people in a pyroclastic flow on May 8th. The election was never held.

The 1961 eruption of Tristan da Cunha displaced the entire population of that island to England, which the Trist’ns hated. After repeated pleas to the government they made it back in 1963, after threatening to charter their own ship to do it.

Finally, Mt. St. Helens concludes – a relatively minor eruption that got way more attention than it deserved by virtue of occurring in the US. I can only say if you liked St. Helens, you’ll love Yellowstone or Mammoth Lake if they ever go.

Pretty good, lots of interesting geological and historical facts. The Eurocentric view is a little disappointing – nothing about Japanese volcanoes, Mt. Pinatubo, Central American volcanoes, the lahar from Nevada del Ruiz that killed 20000 people in Columbia in 1985, other South American volcanoes, or the African volcanoes with their unique carbonitite lava. You can’t have everything.… (meer)

An interesting book based on a course taught by one of the authors at Wesleyan University. The intent is to give liberal arts students some exposure to “hard” science by relating seismology to world history; or “Plate Tectonics for Poets”. The approach is to take nine historical earthquakes and discuss short, medium and long term effects on human life.


The first chapter, on earthquakes in the Bible, is the weakest; while the tectonics of Palestinian, Anatolian, and Arabian platelets and the Dead Sea rift zone are explained accurately, the attempt to relate specific earthquakes to the fall of the walls of Jericho and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah greatly overestimates the historical accuracy of the Old Testament. I suppose I have a personal gripe about this; either these events and others mentioned in the Bible are miracles or they aren’t. If they’re miracles there’s not much point in seeking scientific explanation; if they’re not miracles than straining to pound the round peg of Biblical accounts into the square hole of science doesn’t really help either field.


However, things get better after that. The next quake discussed is in 464 BCE and (the authors suggest) contributed to the decline of Sparta. The tectonic background, with the valley of Laconia described as a subsided fault block ( a graben) between uplifted linear mountain ranges made me think of geography of the Peloponnesus in a new light. The claim (of Diodorus Siculus; the authors think it’s exaggerated) that 20000 Spartans died under collapsed buildings in a 7.2 earthquake perhaps could account for Sparta’s loss of military power. I’m not sure; the timing doesn’t seem quite right: Sparta was still a major state after 464 BCE but it’s interesting to think about.


The next earthquake series occurs in England in 1580 along the Artois fault zone. This was relatively mild (Mercalli felt intensity of VII in London); it knocked down a few chimneys and tsunamis in the Channel destroyed some fishing boats. However, the authors relate it to a line in Romeo and Juliet (“Tis since the earthquake now eleven years”) and suggest this pins the date of the play at 1591 (first attested mention was 1595). Other earthquakes along the same fault zone are suggested to contribute to religious changes in England, including the rise of Methodism.


The massive 1755 Lisbon earthquake definitely had a religious and political effect; the secular authorities wanted to “bury the dead and feed the living” but the Jesuit community in Portugal insisted that these actions were futile until the entire population had gathered in the remains of churches and prayed for forgiveness. The obvious inutility of this plan lead to the decline of Jesuit power in Portugal.


The 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes (which influenced the career of Tecumseh) and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (which destroyed the San Francisco political machine as well as a good chunk of the city) are discussed next, followed by the 1923 Kanto earthquake in Japan. The undamaged survival of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel contributed to his success as an architect, and the generous assistance provided by the United States prompted Prime Minister Yamamoto to say that the ties of peace between the two countries had been strengthened. Well, for a while, anyway. More sinister is the claim that the Kempetai used the chaos to assassinate many opponents of the regime. Thus, it can be argued that the subsequent militarism of Japan was the direct result of the Philippine, Eurasian and Pacific plates intersecting almost underneath Tokyo.


The final two earthquakes are the 1970 Peruvian quake (the largest loss of life from an earthquake in the Western Hemisphere) and the 1972 Managua quake. According to the authors, and not unreasonably, both of these contributed to subsequent political unrest. In both cases, aid poured in from all over the world and in both cases corrupt governments kept it for themselves (the authors quote Daniel Ortega as claiming that the Managua quake changed the Sandinistas from a primarily rural and peasant movement to an urban movement with considerable support from the middle class.


Interestingly, the authors don’t mention the 1992 Dashur earthquake in Egypt. Although few lives were lost – about 16 IIRC – the quake mangled infrastructure in Cairo, cutting sewers, electricity, water lines, and blocking streets. The government response was excruciatingly slow, and fundamentalist mosques quickly took up the slack to provide food, water, and housing to Cairenes. This reportedly greatly strengthened the Muslim Brotherhood; I certainly found a dramatic difference in the outward expression of Islam, especially women’s dress, between my visits to Egypt in 1991 and 1993.


Recommended; both the tectonics and the history are relatively simple but the juxtaposition of the two provides a lot of food for thought. There’s a companion volume dealing with volcanic eruptions; I’ll have to pick that up as well.… (meer)