This book focuses on natural disasters: how the normal processes of the Earth concentrate their energies and deal heavy blows to humans and their structures. It largely ignores the numerous case histories describing human actions and resultant environmental responses; these topics are left to the excellent textbooks on environmental geology. Nor does this book address resource extraction, utilization, and disposal; these subjects are covered by fine textbooks on earth resources, minerals, energy, soils, and water. This book is concerned with how the natural world operates and, in so doing, kills and maims humans and destroys their works.

Throughout the book, certain themes are maintained:

• Energy sources underlying disasters
• Plate tectonics and climate change
• Earth processes operating in rock, water, and atmosphere
• Significance of geologic time
• Complexities of multiple variables operating simultaneously
• Detailed and readable case histories

The text aims to explain important principles about the Earth and then develop further understanding through numerous case histories.