Robert Muir-Wood is head of research at the world's largest catastrophe modelling company, RMS, and a visiting professor at UCL's Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction. He was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, and since 1995 has worked commercially in catastrophe risk science and modelling. He was lead author on two IPCC reports. Muir-Wood's work primarily focuses on the history of science, seismotectonics, and probability risk assessment. He is the author of several books including The Dark Side of the Earth: the battle for the Earth Sciences 1800-1980 (1985), and The Cure for Catastrophe: How We Can Stop Manufacturing Natural Disasters (2016).

• 1: Archi-tectonics


• 2: The Big Tilt


• 3: Age of Fire


• 4: Caught between the Plates


• 5: Age of Ice


• 6: Highland Fling


• 7: The Rocky Road


• Index

This Volcanic Isle explores the rich geological history of the British Isles over the past 66 million years, since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. From the Isle of Wight needles to the Giant's causeway to the Sticklepath faultline in Devon, this book recounts how earthquakes and eruptions, plumes and plate boundaries, built the British Isles.