Photo Gallery Index  (Click on numbered  photo to enlarge (scroll to see entire photo); then push the back button to return to gallery index.)

Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy (below).
June 2001 eruption was predicted to the hour by geologists from the University of Palermo.  After taking the pre-eruption photos (photos 1 and 2), the field trip
relocated to a safe position about 5 kilometers away to shoot the eruption photos (3 and 4).  Note the smoky trail in photo 4 below the crater indicating lava stream.  After
I returned to Etna five years later (March 2006), I observed that Etna was quiet and snow covered  (photos 5 and 6).  Yellow and green objects are recycle bins (photo 5). 
Photos 2 (2001) and  6 (2006) are the same view of satellite cones.

Etna 6-2001 A.M. prior to EruptionEtna 6-2201 Satellite ConesEtna 6-2001 Eruption 1Etna 6-2001 Eruption 2Etna 3-2006 Recycle in SnowEtna 3-2006 Snow Covered Peak
                  1                            2                           3                         4                             5                        6


Mud baths on Island of VolcanoStromboliAeolian Islands, n. of Sicily, Italy (to left).
June 2001 visit to the volcanic islands of Volcano (photo 7) and
Strom'boli  (photo 8).  Photo 7 shows mud baths.  Photo 8 shows
Strombolian-style (explosive) eruption, which takes place
every ~20 minutes.         

                7                              8

                                                           Ranger showing snake                                                                       Ranger showing sphagnumFallen Tamarack needlesKent Bog Tamaracks in Fall
Kent Bog, Ohio
(to right)
A Pleistocene refugium (remnant of the last Ice Age),
this boreal forest shows the tamarack (a deciduous conifer)
in fall colors (photo 9) and fallen needles on a recycled boardwalk
(photo 10).  Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)
 ranger shows sphagnum moss (photo 11) and a live snake (photo 12).

                                                                                                                   9                                    10                                    11                           12



Vocanic tuffExcavated roomsMountain of rooms carved into volcanic tuffCapadoccia landscape
                   13                                       14                                    15                                          16
Capadoccia, Turkey (above)
In central Turkey, a Christian civilization  was driven into hiding in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.  Carved into the volcanic tuff (photo 13) were underground cities and apartment dwellings (photos 14 and 15) and chapels in buttes, called "fairy towers."  The buttes were resistant to erosion  by being capped by basalt (darker rock seen in photo 16).  The tuff was eroded into a badlands topography (photo 16) exhibiting gully erosion where the basalt cap was absent.