Altogether, a little gem of a book and well worth the modest cost. ? Chris Arkwright, Proceedings of the Open University Geological Society Biografía del autor Mike Branney is a Professor of Volcanology at the University of Leicester, and jazz pianist. He investigates explosive super-eruptions, how volcanic ash is transported across the Earth surface, and how volcanoes collapse catastrophically, and has published many key papers on these topics. He works in Korea, Mexico, Phillippines, the UK, Canary Islands, Italy, and the USA. Jan Zalasiewicz is a Professor at the University of Leicester, and before that worked at the British Geological Survey. A field geologist, palaeontologist and stratigrapher, he teaches various aspects of geology and Earth history to undergraduate and postgraduate students, and is a researcher into fossil ecosystems and environments across over half a billion years of geological time. He has published over a hundred papers in scientific journals, and has written and edited several books, including The Planet in a Pebble: a journey into Earth's deep history (OUP 2012), Rocks: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2016), and Geology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2018).