Throughout history, awesome floods, devastating earthquakes, disastrous volcanoes and other catastrophic activities have demonstrated nature's inexplicable power. This title provides up-to-date coverage of the processes that produce natural catastrophes. An introductory chapter details the dynamic forces at work beneath the Earth's crust, while the subsequent nine chapters - each dedicated to a single type of disaster - explain causes and myriad effects of these disturbances, enhanced with numerous examples. Photographs and line drawings depict the carnage wrought by these natural disasters, as well as what is happpening to the Earth's surface while they occur. Chapters include coverage of: earthquakes; volcanic eruptions; earth movements; catastrophic collapse; floods; dust storms; glaciers; impact cratering; and mass extinctions.