Chasing Lava, by Wendell A. Duffield

Chasing Lava: A Geologist's Adventures at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, by Wendell A. Duffield
Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2003
160 pages the Galllery of photos, additional reading and index
Library: 551.210 DUF

Description
In 1969, as Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, a young geologist known as Duff was preparing to set foot on a rocky landscape of another sort: Kilauea Volcano on the island of Hawaii, where he would spend three years at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory.

Volcanologists and general readers alike will enjoy this entertaining account of living and working at Kilauea-one of the world's most active volcanoes and the home of Pele, goddess of fire and volcanoes.

Duff's narrative encompasses everything from the scientific (observations that the movements of a cooled crust on a lava lake mimicked plate tectonics) to the humorous (his dog's doscovery of a snake on the supposedly snake-free island) to the life-threatening (a colleague's plunge into molten lava.)

Table of Contents
1. A farm boy's image of Hawaii
2. A Volcano observatory is born
3. The Hawaii Volcano Observatory Grows
4. Mingo leads the way
5. Our new home
6. Focusing in: The Hawaiian Islands and their string of old neighbors
7. Taking the pulse of Kilauea
8. Are you on the level?
9. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a geodomiter, and thou
10. You're right! That is a snake!
11. Yellow runoff
12. Water beds and magma beds
13. Tree molds and leg molds
14. A Suffocating experience
15. How fast can you runn?
16. Living off the land
17. Camping at Halape
18. Swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks
19. Disharmonious tremor and premature eruption
20. Tainted lava
21. The dance of the plates
22. Why I cruise parking lots
23. The South Flank story
24. Mingo goes home
25. Epilogue: Sharing the fruits of maturation
A Gallery of Directors and Scientists-in-Charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, 1912-2002
Additional reading for the technically inclined
Index