In this addition to the Scientists in the Field series, readers join scientists as they tackle something unusual in the world of ecosystems: colonization. Not a colonization by people, but one of cells, seeds, spores, and other life forms that blow in, fly in, float in, and struggle to survive on the beautiful but harsh new island of Surtsey.

Surtsey: Evolution of Life on a Volcanic Island focuses on the origin of life in the island of Surtsey. The book first offers information on the Surtsey Research Society, conservation measures, and scientists that comprise the Surtsey research team. The text then focuses on the submarine eruptions off the coasts of Iceland, the flow of lava, and the formation and disappearance of islets. The book also describes the landscape that came about after the eruption. The tephra cones of the Surtur I and II craters, lava, coastal plains, and thermal areas are discussed. The text also underscores the ecological aspects of the eruption. The Icelandic biota and ecological studies on the island are discussed. The text also traces the origin of life in the island, including the dispersal of seeds by birds and "Mermaids purses." The text also underscores the origin of marine algae and marine fauna on the island. The book then emphasizes the presence of bacteria, molds, lichens, mosses, terrestrial animals, birds, and vascular plants in the island. The text also examines the outer Westman Islands. Topographical features, method of research, plant communities, and vegetation of the smaller islands are described. The book also notes the vegetation of Heimaey and the effects of insular eruptions on the southern coast of Iceland. The text is a good source of reference for readers wanting to study volcanic eruptions.

Early on a November morning in 1963, off the coast of Iceland, a volcanic eruption was taking place deep under the ocean. On the surface, the crew of a nearby fishing boat were noticing some strange things: a sulfurous aroma in the air and the ocean swirling around the boat. Then, just before dawn, the volcanic eruption that had been increasing in intensity under the sea broke the surface and spewed lava miles in the air, just four miles from their fishing boat. By the next morning, something even more incredible had occurred. The cinder cone of the volcano had broken the surface of the water; a new island had been born. It was the newest place on Earth. The story of the birth of this island is powerfully told by Newbery Honor-winning author Kathryn Lasky. Christopher G. Knight’s dramatic photographs take the reader to the newest place on Earth – Surtsey island.

“At 11:35 p.m., as Radio Armero played cheerful music, a towering wave of mud and rocks bulldozed through the village, roaring like a squadron of fighter jets.” Twenty-three thousand people died in the 1985 eruption of Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz. Today, more than one billion people worldwide live in volcanic danger zones. In this riveting nonfiction book—filled with spectacular photographs and sidebars—Rusch reveals the perilous, adrenaline-fueled, life-saving work of an international volcano crisis team (VDAP) and the sleeping giants they study, from Colombia to the Philippines, from Chile to Indonesia.

This book presents the natural, environmental and scenic richness of the world’s coastal and marine areas classified by UNESCO as “Natural World Heritage Sites”. Representing well-preserved areas of exceptional significance to the planet and to humankind, they include a total of 49 marine sites, formed by reefs, atolls and gulfs, and 35 coastal sites in all oceans and all continents with exception of Antarctica. They are being protected and preserved from most degrading uses for future generations as an important legacy from the past. Exploring their richness, this book analyzes and explains these sites in a clear, understandable, scientific way, and is of interest to all who work in or care about the geosciences, environmental sciences and biosciences.

“Will appeal to readers of Elena Ferrante and Margaret Atwood . . . the unusual setting offers an interesting twist on the portrait of an artist as a young woman.” —Bookpage In 1960s Iceland, Hekla dreams of being a writer. In a nation of poets, where each household proudly displays leatherbound volumes of the Sagas, and there are more writers per capita than anywhere else in the world, there is only one problem: she is a woman. After packing her few belongings, including James Joyces’s Ulysses and a Remington typewriter, Hekla heads for Reykjavik with a manuscript buried in her bags. She moves in with her friend Jon, a gay man who longs to work in the theatre, but can only find dangerous, backbreaking work on fishing trawlers. Hekla’s opportunities are equally limited: marriage and babies, or her job as a waitress, in which harassment from customers is part of the daily grind. The two friends feel completely out of place in a small and conservative world. And yet that world is changing: JFK is shot. Hemlines are rising. In Iceland, another volcano erupts and Hekla meets a poet who brings to light harsh realities about her art—as she realizes she must escape to find freedom abroad, whatever the cost. Miss Iceland, a winner of two international book awards, comes from the acclaimed author of Hotel Silence, which received the Icelandic Literary Prize. “Only a great book can make you feel you’re really there, a thousand miles and a generation away. I loved it.” —Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon “[A] winning tale of friendship and self-fulfillment.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A coming-of-age novel in verse set in 1980s Southern California, about a Persian American girl who rides the waves, falls, and finds her way back to the shore Thirteen-year-old Ava loves to surf and to sing. Singing and reading Rumi poems settle her mild OCD, and catching waves with her best friend, Phoenix, lets her fit in—her olive skin looks tan, not foreign. But then Ava has to spend the summer before ninth grade volunteering at the hospital, to follow in her single mother’s footsteps to become a doctor. And when Phoenix’s past lymphoma surges back, not even surfing, singing, or poetry can keep them afloat, threatening Ava’s hold on the one place and the one person that make her feel like she belongs. With ocean-like rhythm and lyricism, Wave is about a girl who rides the waves, tumbles, and finds her way back to the shore.

California, here we come!Faith's Pa says there's no room on a wagon train for Josefina, a chicken who's too tough to eat and too old to lay eggs. But Faith loves her pet. Can Josefina show Pa that she still has a few surprises left in her?

When volcanologist Surtsey finds her married lover dead, she pockets his phone and makes the fatal decision to keep her discovery secret ... but someone has been watching... 'A cracking and highly original thriller' Mark Billingham 'You don't read Fault Lines so much as you white-knuckle your way through its twists and turns' Megan Abbott 'A superb, highly original psychological chiller' Steve Cavanagh ____________________ In a reimagined contemporary Edinburgh, where a tectonic fault has opened up to produce a new volcano in the Firth of Forth, and where tremors are an everyday occurrence, volcanologist Surtsey makes a shocking discovery. On a clandestine trip to new volcanic island The Inch, to meet Tom, her lover and her boss, she finds his lifeless body, and makes the fatal decision to keep their affair, and her discovery, a secret. Desperate to know how he died, but also terrified she'll be exposed, Surtsey's life quickly spirals into a nightmare when someone makes contact – someone who claims to know what she's done... ____________________ 'An explosive thriller' Daily Record 'A cracking-good thriller with some seriously good writing and some beautifully designed characters ... Here's a writer pushing the thriller envelope, giving the reader not just a good novel, but also a unique one' David Pitt, Booklist 'Novel and elegant ... it is the book's thought-provoking and heart-breaking moments that carry the reader through the story and which resonate most at the end' Scotsman 'Both a meditation on the volatility of human nature and a gripping thriller with plenty of twists and turns ... An original and addictive thriller, as intelligent as it is shocking' Foreword Reviews 'Richly characterised, beautifully crafted, this is a book that you truly inhabit' Emma Kavanagh 'Scotland's truest exponent of noir' Chris Brookmyre 'A subtly off-kilter speculative thriller that builds to a truly explosive ending' Eva Dolan 'A pacey, gripping read' Louise Voss 'Sexy, fearless and addictive' Helen FitzGerald 'Johnstone weaves his compelling and original tale with great skill and elegance from the gripping beginning to a tense and explosive ending' Amanda Jennings 'Brilliantly unputdownable' Martyn Waites 'Superb' Luca Veste 'Blending powerful imagination and plotting, this is the work of a writer at the top of his game' Stuart Neville 'Plays with every single emotion' Susi Holliday 'This had me hooked from the first page' Cass Green 'Poignant, gripping and packed with seismic shocks' Paddy Magrane 'Incisive, intelligent and imaginative' Michael J. Malone 'I was completely swept away' Caroline Mitchell 'Hits you lie a seismic shock' Douglas Skelton 'Grabs you by the throat in the first chapter' Neil Broadfoot

The birth of the island was in itself an interesting geological phenomenon but the island also became a biological laboratory, where scientists could investigate how organisms disperse across the ocean to remote islands and how plants and animals colonize completely barren areas like Surtsey whith its extremely hostile habitat, sub-arctic environment and its substrate of lava, ash and pumice. On Surtsey it was possible to demonstrate how seed and various living organisms are carried by air or ocean currents over great distances and how they manage to disperse on their own or are transported by other means. The thorough investigations carried out on Surtsey showed how the pioneers invaded the island and were gradually joined by others in forming primitive societies and simple ecosystems. These societies are then compared whith the more advanced communities on neighboring islands in order to predict the future development of life on Surtsey until it reaches its ecological climax. English language version.