Double Exposure

Volcanoes: beauty and menace

Open weekdays - 20 January to 1 June 2012

An exhibition of photographs of volcanoes and major volcanic eruptions, their hazards and consequences (1980 to the present).

Since the eruption of Mount St Helens, USA, in 1980 there has been a revolution in scientific understanding of how volcanoes are crucial to sustaining life on Earth and yet threaten human populations and the planet with the most devastating natural forces.

Volcanic soils form the most fertile lands and support over 10% of the world’s population, but volcanoes are also a threat to the same communities who depend upon them for their livelihoods.  The recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland, showed how volcanic ash, the key to long-term soil fertility, was a hazard to the respiratory health of farmers living under the ash cloud and could poison their livestock, while air traffic over Europe was severely disrupted for days.   In 2010, on Merapi volcano, Java, where for centuries villagers have lived in sustainable harmony with the volcano’s small and replenishing eruptions, up to a million people had to flee from its fury: many thousands would have been killed without timely warnings from scientists monitoring the volcano.

Today, the biggest challenge for disaster-reduction is in the mega-cities and urban sprawls which have developed in active volcanic areas owing to the global trend of rapid urbanisation.  As a result, from Vesuvius, Italy, to Goma in the conflict-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the potential for eruptions to cause huge loss of life is growing all the time.

Presented by:

Peter Baxter
Department of Public Health and Primary Care
Institute of Public Health
University of Cambridge

Clive Oppenheimer
Department of Geography
University of Cambridge

About Double Exposure

As a development of the reorganisation and refurbishment of the Photography and Illustration Service, we now offer exclusive exhibition space in the centre of Cambridge under the title Double Exposure. If you or your department have images you would like to display publicly and attracts the interest of people from varied backgrounds we have the ideal forum.

The nature of our services attract a wide customer base with regular visits from members of the University of Cambridge community and organisations world-wide. All of the Double Exposure exhibitions are publicised in advance on the University website, newsletter and by invitation.

The shows are bi-monthly, organised one month in advance. Simply supply us with 25 digital files at A3 (400dpi), a 200 word introduction and captions for your images. We will then produce superb photographic prints on our state of the art digital minilab, frame your prints for you and produce an A3 panel for your introduction.

Double Exposure is a completely free service and at the end of your show, your A3 photographic prints are presented to you with our compliments.

For further information, please email pandis@ucs.cam.ac.uk or telephone (01223) 334889.