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Volcanic activity and human ecology
QUATERNARY
RESEARCH
15,
107- 108 (1981)
BOOK REVIEWS Volcanic
Activity
and
Human
P. D. Sheets and D. K. Grayson. New York, 1979. 644 pp., $49.50.
Edited by Academic Press,
Ecology.
The publication of this book could not have been more appropriately timed. It arrived on my desk just as Mount St. Helens broke its century-long state of dormancy and entered a new phase of eruptive violence that attracted worldwide attention. During the initial phases of the activity, and after the culminating explosive eruption of 18 May, I frequently referred to the book, for it contains some twenty contributions related mainly to volcanic disasters and their effects on human populations. Introductory chapters on volcanoes and eruption types (F. M. Bullard) and on tephra studies (L. R. Kittleman; F. C. Ugolini and R. J. Zasoski) provide background for general discussions of volcanic hazards (R. A. Warrick) and of specific examples, both historic and prehistoric, that constitute the remainder of the volume. The editors are prehistorians whose own research has involved the effects on people and natural environments of such major volcanic disasters as Mount Mazama in the Pacific Northwest and Ilopango in Central America. Other contributions following this general theme deal with case studies of historic Iceland eruptions (S. Thorarinsson), volcanoes of the Cascades and Hawaii (D. Hodge et al.), the Mexican volcano Paricutin (J. D. Rees; M. L. Nolan), tephra eruptions of southern Alaska (W. B. Workman; D. E. Dumond), Sunset Crater and the San Francisco volcanic field of Arizona (P. J. Pilles, Jr.; R. H. Hevly et al.), the well-studied eruptions of Thera and their possible impact on Minoan civilization in the eastern Mediterranean (C. Renfrew), and the disastrous A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius (W. F. Jashemski). I found the entire volume to be informative and the contributions well written, although of particular interest to me were Kittleman’s review of geologic methods in tephra studies, a summary of recent volcanic-hazards studies in the Cascade Range (D. R. Crandell et al.), and the discussion by E. Blinman et al. of the use of pollen influx values to estimate the duration of the prehistoric Mazama and Glacier Peak tephra falls in the Pacific Northwest. I also appreciated the concise and informative account in English of the impact of the Vesuvius eruption on Pompeii that included some interesting data which I had not encountered before. If one were to find fault with the book, it might be mainly in its uneven geographic coverage, for the emphasis is on North American examples. I would have
found the volume to be of even greater interest had selections been included covering such areas as South America, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Japan where similar studies have been carried out in recent years. Nevertheless, because of the increasing interest in volcanic hazards and tephrochronology, as evidenced, for example, by the activities of the INQUA Commission on Tephrochronology and a recent NATO-sponsored conference in Iceland on “Tephra as a tool in Quatemary research,” this book should have a wide and receptive audience. I, for one, anticipate making frequent reference to it, and recommend it highly to Quaternary scientists interested in the environmental impact of volcanic eruptions, both past and future. STEPHEN
C.
PORTER
Quaternary Research Center University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195
Tratado de Paleomastozoologia. Carlos de Paula Couto. Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, Rio de Janeiro, 1979, 590 pp. + 572 illus.
Mammalian paleontology in South America has since the times of Abel, Philippi, Ameghino, Burmeister, Boule, Lydekker, Sevfe, Kraglievich, and Lommis, possessed a vast tradition, enriched by the consecutive contributions of Latin American paleozoologists such as Oliver-Schneider, Rusconi, Royo y Gomez, Price, Reig, Pascual, Casamiquela, De Porta, Francis, and De Souza Cunha and by important researches of foreign paleontologists such as Lund, Etzold, Spillman, Simpson, Schaub, Van Frank, Hoffstetter, Stirton, Marshall, Patterson, Edmund, and Churcher; all have made valuable discoveries from the Panamanian Land Bridge to the Fuego-Patagonian region and subsequently published in the more renowned paleontological reviews. Until the appearance of this book, however, there did not exist an integrated and modernized work about extinct Latin American faunas. Carlos de Paula Couto is one of the more prolific authors in the field of paleozoology, having written more than a hundred studies in paleontology, especially of the Quatemary of Brazil and the Caribbean islands. Following the characteristic methodology of works of this nature, the first two chapters are dedicated to skeletal and dental structure, using as a model the anatomy of Chrysocyon
107 0033-5894/81/010107-02$02.00/0 Copyright All rights
@ 1981 by the University of Washington of reproduction in any form reserved.
RESEARCH
15,
107- 108 (1981)
BOOK REVIEWS Volcanic
Activity
and
Human
P. D. Sheets and D. K. Grayson. New York, 1979. 644 pp., $49.50.
Edited by Academic Press,
Ecology.
The publication of this book could not have been more appropriately timed. It arrived on my desk just as Mount St. Helens broke its century-long state of dormancy and entered a new phase of eruptive violence that attracted worldwide attention. During the initial phases of the activity, and after the culminating explosive eruption of 18 May, I frequently referred to the book, for it contains some twenty contributions related mainly to volcanic disasters and their effects on human populations. Introductory chapters on volcanoes and eruption types (F. M. Bullard) and on tephra studies (L. R. Kittleman; F. C. Ugolini and R. J. Zasoski) provide background for general discussions of volcanic hazards (R. A. Warrick) and of specific examples, both historic and prehistoric, that constitute the remainder of the volume. The editors are prehistorians whose own research has involved the effects on people and natural environments of such major volcanic disasters as Mount Mazama in the Pacific Northwest and Ilopango in Central America. Other contributions following this general theme deal with case studies of historic Iceland eruptions (S. Thorarinsson), volcanoes of the Cascades and Hawaii (D. Hodge et al.), the Mexican volcano Paricutin (J. D. Rees; M. L. Nolan), tephra eruptions of southern Alaska (W. B. Workman; D. E. Dumond), Sunset Crater and the San Francisco volcanic field of Arizona (P. J. Pilles, Jr.; R. H. Hevly et al.), the well-studied eruptions of Thera and their possible impact on Minoan civilization in the eastern Mediterranean (C. Renfrew), and the disastrous A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius (W. F. Jashemski). I found the entire volume to be informative and the contributions well written, although of particular interest to me were Kittleman’s review of geologic methods in tephra studies, a summary of recent volcanic-hazards studies in the Cascade Range (D. R. Crandell et al.), and the discussion by E. Blinman et al. of the use of pollen influx values to estimate the duration of the prehistoric Mazama and Glacier Peak tephra falls in the Pacific Northwest. I also appreciated the concise and informative account in English of the impact of the Vesuvius eruption on Pompeii that included some interesting data which I had not encountered before. If one were to find fault with the book, it might be mainly in its uneven geographic coverage, for the emphasis is on North American examples. I would have
found the volume to be of even greater interest had selections been included covering such areas as South America, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Japan where similar studies have been carried out in recent years. Nevertheless, because of the increasing interest in volcanic hazards and tephrochronology, as evidenced, for example, by the activities of the INQUA Commission on Tephrochronology and a recent NATO-sponsored conference in Iceland on “Tephra as a tool in Quatemary research,” this book should have a wide and receptive audience. I, for one, anticipate making frequent reference to it, and recommend it highly to Quaternary scientists interested in the environmental impact of volcanic eruptions, both past and future. STEPHEN
C.
PORTER
Quaternary Research Center University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195
Tratado de Paleomastozoologia. Carlos de Paula Couto. Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, Rio de Janeiro, 1979, 590 pp. + 572 illus.
Mammalian paleontology in South America has since the times of Abel, Philippi, Ameghino, Burmeister, Boule, Lydekker, Sevfe, Kraglievich, and Lommis, possessed a vast tradition, enriched by the consecutive contributions of Latin American paleozoologists such as Oliver-Schneider, Rusconi, Royo y Gomez, Price, Reig, Pascual, Casamiquela, De Porta, Francis, and De Souza Cunha and by important researches of foreign paleontologists such as Lund, Etzold, Spillman, Simpson, Schaub, Van Frank, Hoffstetter, Stirton, Marshall, Patterson, Edmund, and Churcher; all have made valuable discoveries from the Panamanian Land Bridge to the Fuego-Patagonian region and subsequently published in the more renowned paleontological reviews. Until the appearance of this book, however, there did not exist an integrated and modernized work about extinct Latin American faunas. Carlos de Paula Couto is one of the more prolific authors in the field of paleozoology, having written more than a hundred studies in paleontology, especially of the Quatemary of Brazil and the Caribbean islands. Following the characteristic methodology of works of this nature, the first two chapters are dedicated to skeletal and dental structure, using as a model the anatomy of Chrysocyon
107 0033-5894/81/010107-02$02.00/0 Copyright All rights
@ 1981 by the University of Washington of reproduction in any form reserved.