Stories by Peter Francis

In the life cycle of many volcanoes a catastrophic collapse is a "normal" event. The details of the process are revealed in the deposits left by the devastating avalanches of debris

The explosions that obliterated most of the Indonesian island 100 years ago are only now beginning to be understood. The evidence is largely the volcanic deposits and the timing of air and sea waves

They are craters tens of kilometers in diameter that remain after eruptions far more violent than any in the span ofhuman history. Perhaps 10 of them have been created over the past million years