FIRE and MUD: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines

FIRE and MUD

Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines Edited by Christopher G. Newhall and Raymundo S. Punongbayan

1,120 p. 915 illus., 403 photos, 162 in color, 512 drawings,
VOLQUAKE program on 3-1/2" computer disk, LC 96-33410, 8-1/2" x 11" 1997

ISBN: 0-295-97585-7 Cloth $80.00 World rights except in the Philippines

Fire and Mud is a comprehensive document of the awakening of a volcano after a 500-year sleep. Its 62 technical papers tell the scientific and human story of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the events surrounding it.

Second in size only to an eruption in Katmai, Alaska, in 1912, and ten times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, Pinatubo's eruption threatened the lives of a million people. A giant ash cloud rose 35 kilometers into the sky and hot blasts seared the countryside, but a more serious disaster was averted by timely, accurate warnings. Philippine authorities were able to evacuate 60,000 people from the slopes and valleys, and the American military evacuated 18,000 personnel and their dependents from Clark Air Base below the mountain-thus saving many thousands of lives and an estimated billion dollars in property and making this the most successful case of volcanic hazards mitigation in history.

In this impressive volume, volcanologists and other experts from 10 countries explore the precursors, processes, and products of the eruption, as well as record-setting erosion and lahars (volcanic mudflows) that followed. Nearly half of what the eruption deposited on Pinatubo's slopes has now been eroded and dumped, in repeated rounds of terror, on villages at the foot of the volcano. The eruption also injected so much sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that the global climate was cooled for about two years.

Volcanologists and civil defense officials will consult this book for years to come as they seek to understand large eruptions and to protect communities at risk from long-dormant volcanoes. Scholars and students will find here an interdisciplinary view of a fascinating, incredibly dynamic geologic system. Others with a modest technical background and interest in volcanoes will find many individual essays of interest.

Christopher Newhall is a geologist with the United States Geological Survey and affiliate professor at the University of Washington's Volcano Systems Center. Raymondo Punongbayan is director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in Quezon City, Philippines.

Published with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Quezon City.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fire and Mud: eruptions and lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines / edited by
Christopher G. Newhall and Raymundo S. Punongbayan.
  p.    cm.
ISBN 0-295-97585-7 (Seattle : alk. paper)
1. Pinatubo, Mount (Philippines) 2. Lahars -- Philippines -- Pinatubo, Mount, Region.
I. Newhall, Christopher G. II. Punongbayan, Raymundo.
QE523.P56F57   1996   96-33410
551.2'1'095991 -- dc20   CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences -- Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z.48-1984.

University of Washington Press
FIRE and MUD Web Page at University of Washington Press

Credit card orders by phone: 1-800-441-4115
Fax: 1-800-669-7993
e-mail: uwpord@u.washington.edu
Foreign: 206-543-8870 / Fax 206-685-3460

FIRE and MUD | Contents

PHIVOLCS | University of Washington Press | U.S.Geological Survey
This page is <https://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/order.html>
Contact: Chris Newhall
Last updated 09.16.98