Volcano!

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

Nature creates many breathtaking displays, but few are as awe-inspiring as an erupting volcano, spewing flame, lava, and mud in vivid evidence that Earth is a living planet. Volcanologists are prepared to drop everything at a moment's notice and rush to the scene of the latest rumblings to study and photograph these phenomena. Perhaps the most famed were France's Maurice and Katia Krafft, who this National Geographic special followed to a half-dozen or so eruptions, filming them at work. The result is a video filled with stunning shots - many taken by Maurice Krafft - of lava pouring down mountainsides, dark gaseous plumes blotting out the sun, and mud slowly burying everything in its path.

Watching the Kraffts paddling about in a rubber boat in a volcanic...