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Can ladies do science?Of course.As Sally Ride says in the Foreword, this is the first edited book on planetary geology written solely by women. Let's hear it for Rosaly Lopes, Tracy Gregg, Katherine Cashman, Ellen Stofan, Lisa Gaddis, Susan Sakimoto, Joy Crisp, Louise Prockter, Mary Chapman, Gudrun Larsen, and Susan Kieffer! These ladies were the logical authorities to be chosen to write their respective chapters. And they did a great job.Cashman leads off with a discussion of hot spot volcanism and subduction zone volcanism. The part on hot spots deals mostly with volcanoes in Hawaii, but the Laki volcano in Iceland is chosen as the most dramatic example of "the deleterious effects of volcanic gases." The section on subduction zone volcanism includes topics such as silicic lava flows and lava domes as well as caldera collapse. And there's plenty about the hazards associated with such volcanism, including a speculation that the eruption of Toba, Sumatra (74,000 years ago) may have reduced the human population to less than 100,000 back then.Gregg talks about the exploration of volcanoes hidden at the sea floor on mid-ocean ridges. This includes some discussion of hydrothermal venting there, which can raise the ocean water temperature near a vent to over 400 degrees Celsius. And, of course, it is mentioned that there is speculation about similar volcanism (and even life) on the Jovian moon Europa.What about "Earth's evil twin," as Stofan appropriately calls Venus? Thousands of volcanoes have been identified on Venus. We learn about lava flows there as well as long sinuous channels. Some of the lava flows there are much longer than were predicted. Hopefully, we'll learn from them how to better predict how far lava flows will travel on our own planet!Gaddis tells us about lunar volcanoes. She shows a picture of a sinuous rille on the Moon. A few decades ago, some people speculated that such rilles were produced by water, but Gaddis explains that they are now known to have been carved by lava. And she says that volcanoes on the Moon range from about 4.3 billion years old (since the formation of the lunar crust) to 3 billion years old. There hasn't been any volcanic activity on the moon in the past billion years or so.Sakamoto and Crisp then have sections on Martian volcanoes. Besides an overview, we get a detailed discussion of what Mars Pathfinder discovered from the Martian surface.Lopes (who is almost literally the girl from Ipanema) has a fascinating section on the Io volcanoes observed by the Voyager and Galileo missions. She is now working on the Cassini Mission, where she is getting a chance to investigate calderas and cryovolcanism on Titan. I think we'll need a new edition to tell us about this!Procter's section is on ice volcanism. She shows us evidence of cryoclastic eruptions on Europa and on other moons of major planets. The most interesting part is the discussion of the "cantaloupe terrain" of Triton.Well, what do volcanoes produce? Um, ash! And Chapman and Larsen tell us plenty about it. Larsen is an expert in tephrachronology, and she knows all about the varied ages and types of ash deposits in Iceland. This detailed knowledge is used by the authors to draw conclusions about volcanic deposits on Mars (Chapman's specialty).The book concludes with a chapter by Kieffer. She begins with the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park. She contrasts these geyser eruptions with volcanic plumes on Mars, Io, and Mount Saint Helens. And from here, she makes analogies with volcanism on Triton and Titan.Volcanoes are very interesting. But one can see that it takes hard work and talent to do work in this field. In my opinion, there is one other requirement, namely courage. Volcanoes are dangerous! In any case, let me express my sincere admiration for all the authors in producing this fine book.
