Dr Robin George Andrews

Multi-Award-Winning Science Journalist - Author - Volcanologist - Photographer - Public Speaker - Mischief Maker - Time Lord

Hello! I'm the doctor. No, not that one.

Robin is perpetually curious and often ridiculous. He’s a doctor of experimental volcanology (blew stuff up for science) an award-winning, full-time, freelance science journalist (rearranges letters for money), an author (he’s written a best-selling popsci book on terrestrial and extraterrestrial volcanoes, and he’s writing another non-fiction book right now on how to save the world from asteroid strikes), a part-time award-winning photographer (takes photographs that aren’t awful), a scientific consultant (tells people how to do science right), an occasional lecturer (rearranges letters and says them aloud for money), a public speaker (rearranges letters and says them aloud, sometimes for free), and a frequent explain-how-volcanoes-work TV guest (gesticulates wildly on live television). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, The Washington Post, Vox, Nature, Science Magazine, Earther, Gizmodo, Forbes, The Verge, New Scientist, Supercluster, Discover Magazine, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, WIRED, CNN, the Guardian, the Observer, The Times, The Daily Beast, and elsewhere. He also has a column over at Atlas Obscura—Good News from Planet Earth—which tells tales that make your day just that little bit brighter.

He’s enjoyed all his assignments, but he’s especially pleased that three of his stories made the front page of The New York Times – with two of these and one other making the cover of the Science Times section – and that his very first story for The Washington Post went straight to the front page. Another tale was made Scientific American’s cover story and another made the cover of New Scientist. Although all that might pale in comparison to his National Geographic story on an unsolved “murder” mystery—because that one went viral and got turned into TikToks, which was adorable. Oh, and two of his pieces – this one and this one – were listed as notable essays in the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Best American Science and Nature Writing, which was lovely. He’s also appeared multiple times on Science Shortform’s best science journalism roundups, both as Honorable Mentions and Top Picks. And an article he wrote for The Atlantic, one that explored the psychological dilemma experienced by scientists watching a spectacular but dangerous eruption, was immortalized in academia when his term for this phenomenon—the “volcanologist’s paradox”—was quoted and repeatedly cited in a 2022 Nature paper.

He’s also the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling popular science book SUPER VOLCANOES: WHAT THEY REVEAL ABOUT EARTH AND THE WORLDS BEYOND — and it’s about (you guessed it) volcanoes. Many see volcanoes as little more than unpredictable magmatic killers. But for the most part, they are fantastical masterworks of molten rock capable of near-magical acts. And as they put on a pyrotechnical performance, they reveal secrets about the planets to which they belong. In other words, volcanoes aren’t frightening; they’re breathtaking, bizarre, and bonkers. They are citadels built by frozen lava that provide revelation after revelation about the Stygian depths and the strange surfaces of worlds near and far, including the only home we’ve ever known. (To his great relief, everyone seemed to really enjoy the book; one review, in the Wall Street Journal, described Robin’s writing style as “quasimagical”, which he was thrilled about.)

He’s now working on his second book! It’s not a surprise that the box office over the last few years has been dominated by escapist superhero fantasy flicks. Everybody loves a good story about saving the world. HOW TO KILL AN ASTEROID just happens to be the tale of how scientists are preparing to do it for real.

You can also sometimes see his goofy face appear on TV, including on BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and Good Morning America. If faces aren’t your thing, you can hear his exceedingly British accent on the Guardian’s podcasts, and on Vox’s immaculately made Unexplainable podcast talking about planets and planetary defense.

He is also the 2022 recipient of the European Geosciences Union's Angela Croome Award for continued, excellent and successful reporting of Earth, space & planetary science topics—something he received the day after his first book was published in the US, making those 48 hours pretty damn exciting. Later that year, he was made the 2022 recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Writing — News, specifically for this National Geographic article about the Dyatlov Pass incident, easily the strangest story he’s ever reported.

Find him here, sometimes on this, and elsewhere. If you happen to be in London, he'd much prefer to meet at the Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town. Yes, he's always available to cameo in Star Wars and Doctor Who.

Direct all mail - hate or otherwise - here. You can also find me on Twitter.

Super Volcanoes

What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond

OUT NOW

*Orders*

US - Canada - UK - France - Germany - Italy + more

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK + Europe)

*

An exhilarating, time-traveling journey to the solar system’s strangest and most awe-inspiring volcanoes.

Volcanoes are capable of acts of pyrotechnical prowess verging on magic: they spout black magma more fluid than water, create shimmering cities of glass at the bottom of the ocean and frozen lakes of lava on the moon, and can even tip entire planets over. Between lava that melts and re-forms the landscape, and noxious volcanic gases that poison the atmosphere, volcanoes have threatened life on Earth countless times in our planet’s history. Yet despite their reputation for destruction, volcanoes are inseparable from the creation of our planet.

A lively and utterly fascinating guide to these geologic wonders, Super Volcanoes revels in the incomparable power of volcanic eruptions past and present, Earthbound and otherwise—and recounts the daring and sometimes death-defying careers of the scientists who study them. Science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews explores how these eruptions reveal secrets about the worlds to which they belong, describing the stunning ways in which volcanoes can sculpt the sea, land, and sky, and even influence the machinery that makes or breaks the existence of life.

Walking us through the mechanics of some of the most infamous eruptions on Earth, Andrews outlines what we know about how volcanoes form, erupt, and evolve, as well as what scientists are still trying to puzzle out. How can we better predict when a deadly eruption will occur—and protect communities in the danger zone? Is Earth’s system of plate tectonics, unique in the solar system, the best way to forge a planet that supports life? And if life can survive and even thrive in Earth’s extreme volcanic environments—superhot, superacidic, and supersaline surroundings previously thought to be completely inhospitable—where else in the universe might we find it?

Traveling from Hawai‘i, Yellowstone, Tanzania, and the ocean floor to the moon, Venus, and Mars, Andrews illuminates the cutting-edge discoveries and lingering scientific mysteries surrounding these phenomenal forces of nature.

Publisher: W.W. Norton

*

Praise for SUPER VOLCANOES

"Everything you ever wanted to know about volcanoes in expert hands”…“illuminating”…“an impressive geologic education”…“a fascinating scientific adventure.”

Kirkus

“It’s Volcano Day!” says The Doctor in the Doctor Who episode “The Fires of Pompeii.” Like the charismatic time-traveling hero of the popular British series who takes his companion back to that fateful day in 79 A.D., this book by science journalist Andrews escorts readers on an adventure through space and time to the many volcanoes inhabiting this world and beyond.

With references to pop culture (like Doctor Who) and a literary flair, this is the Baedeker of volcanoes, guiding readers through the world of volcanology.

Library Journal (Starred Review)

“Volcanoes are capable of doing things that verge on the supernatural,” writes journalist Andrews in his enlightening debut. Volcanoes have a “terrible reputation” of being destructive, and in service of putting them in a new light, Andrews takes readers on a tour of some strange and fascinating examples of “the magic they make and the secrets they unearth.”

Andrews does a superb job making complex geology accessible to more casual readers, and offers vivid descriptions of the forces behind both active and ancient volcanoes. As entertaining as it is informative, this is science writing done right.

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Andrews is erudite, accessible and engrossing in this wide-ranging tour that covers the supervolcano that formed Yellowstone National Park, a rare black-lava-spewing volcano in Tanzania, and similar ruptures on Venus, Mars and Jupiter’s moons to help us better understand our universe.

The New Y0rk Times

[Volcanoes] are still painted as villains in the media, in movies and in books. Robin George Andrews might be that agent volcanoes need to change their public persona.

Andrews creates a sense of wonder…[he’s] gifted in describing volcanic processes in ways that most people can comprehend.

Andrews admits that what he really wants to be is a time traveler. This is clear from “Super Volcanoes.” The book excels when he drops us into a foreign location or time, like a devastating eruption of Yellowstone or in the atmosphere of Venus, and paints us a picture of actually being there.

Washington Post

Every chapter straddles the psychological never-never land between myth and science. The inspiration for the author’s enthusiastic quasimagical style is made clear from his autobiographical snippets. Growing up in the U.K., Mr. Andrews tells us that he was an avid video gamer since the age of 4: “Virtual domains had a strong influence on the way I saw the world.” But it was Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (1998) that “blew my mind” and gave a 10-year-old Mr. Andrews a “desire to study Earth’s volcanic splendor,” eventually leading to a Ph.D. in volcanology, followed by a career as an award-winning science journalist. The book is laced with references to video games, as well as to “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings.” Dragon avatars emerge from their lairs, exhale fire and vanish. Volcanic “wizardry” abounds.

I was sucked in by his jaunty dramatic stories. The science writing is consistently exciting and illuminating and kept me reading into the wee hours… Spoiler alert. The metaphorical magma beneath “Super Volcanoes” is revealed only at the end. “This book isn’t about volcanoes—not really. It’s about time travel.” Using his storytelling skills, Mr. Andrews offers us a solar system resembling a “boundless library, one full of books whose words are written in volcanic ink.”

The Wall Street Journal

More than any other physical feature, volcanoes embody the majesty, menace and sheer power of our restless planet. In Super Volcanoes, Robin George Andrews takes readers on a Cook’s tour of volcanoes near and far, fuelling a broader curiosity about our planet and its place in the solar system.

Andrews’s descriptions are breezy, readily engaging the reader…He is at his best when discussing those who live in the shadow of volcanoes and, especially, the scientists who study them. Like good scientists everywhere, the volcanologists Andrews interviews are motivated by a deep love of nature and the allure of all that we still don’t understand. Their commitment, good humour and probing questions add much to the narrative.

In his closing benediction, Andrews admits that, in the end, his book is not really about volcanoes. What volcanoes provide is an invitation to explore and wonder, with experts, at the stories they tell, as well as the possibility of looking at the Earth with new eyes.

Times Literary Supplement

As a trained volcanologist, Andrews is in awe of his subjects; his zeal is obvious... [His] attentive reporting will be enjoyed by both the magma-curious and anyone who just wants to wonder at some of the strangest, strongest forces in the universe.

Scientific American

Featured in New Scientist’s Don’t Miss notices

Featured in Popular Science magazine

…a great read about the superiority of all kinds of volcanoes, from Yellowstone’s supervolcano to icy geysers in the outer solar system.

EarthSky

Dr. Robin George Andrews wields the dual instruments of scientific training and journalistic curiosity with expert precision in Super Volcanoes. His skillful blend of storytelling and science fact sheds light into the dark crevasses of the human psyche, so often primed to fear volcanoes—yet another misunderstood feature of our natural world. Andrews’s work gives voice to the wonder, the devastation, and the awe of being human in a world shaped by forces far outside of our control, yet still tantalizingly within reach for the scientists brave enough to heed the call of the volcanic unknown.

Jess Phoenix, volcanologist and author of Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life

I always suspected that volcanoes were the most amazing things on Earth, but I never knew that they’re also the most amazing things in the entire solar system. Andrews is a deeply informed and endlessly enthusiastic guide to these geological marvels.

Steve Olson, author of Eruption and The Apocalypse Factory

Dr. Robin Andrews takes us on an explosive, gassy, messy adventure decoding the epic hot mess that is volcanism on Earth and far beyond. If volcanoes have ever triggered even a minor explosion of fear, excitement, awe, confusion, or curiosity for you: Read. This. Book.

Dr. Janine Krippner, volcanologist, Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program

Delightful. Robin George Andrews brings his expertise and enthusiasm to bear on this explosive subject, vividly connecting the Hadean underworld of magma to the human one above, and inviting the reader into the ongoing quest to understand volcanoes’ secrets—on Earth and far beyond.

Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions

Andrews takes us on the adventure of a geological lifetime in Super Volcanoes, a masterwork which explores the engines of our world and of those throughout the solar system. We do not go alone on this epic journey, we are accompanied by those who have shared with us their colorful lived experiences and expertise which, when combined with a molten rock theme, means this is certainly no cold, hard science piece, but one of great humanity and scientific depth.

James O’Donoghue, Planetary Scientist, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Robin George Andrews weaves a narrative between history and cutting-edge science, taking the reader on a journey around the world and then off into deep space, exploring the extremes of volcanism while imparting a sense of wonderment and exhilaration along the way… Andrews’ child-like excitement and fascination for all things lava-like and explosive is most evident in his ability to recount interviews with tens, if not hundreds of leading scientific researchers in such a way that you feel they happened over coffee and cake, or at a late-night whiskey bar… Super Volcanoes is fast-paced and full of extraordinary facts…

Geographical Magazine

HOW

TO KILL

AN ASTEROID

THE ABSURD TRUE STORY

OF THE SCIENTISTS

DEFENDING THE PLANET

☄️ 💥 ☠️

october 2024

It’s 7pm on September 26th, 2022. Across the campus of a university in Maryland, hundreds of people are glued to their screens—windows into the cold depths of space—counting down to the moment that everything changes. And all over the world, astronomers are standing by their telescopes, all pointed at one tiny speck of light in the night sky. Seven million miles from home, an uncrewed spaceship is heading toward an asteroid at breakneck speeds. Its mission: to crash straight into it, losing its robotic life in the process and change the journey of that asteroid around the sun. 

This is it. This single space mission could alter the course of human history. 

Forget the planet killers; astronomers have found pretty much all the heftiest asteroids. But tens of thousands of so-called city killers – asteroids the size of football stadiums – lurk out there in the darkness, as yet undiscovered. They are far more likely to impact Earth than those rarer, larger rocky beasts. They have struck Earth plenty of times in the past. More impacts are a certainty. And if we get unlucky, one could careen into a random country with little warning, killing millions of people in an instant. 

For most of our species’ existence, we were helpless to stop such a catastrophe. But perhaps no longer: If all goes according to plan, in the not-too-distant future, we will be able to prevent any of those elusive city killer asteroids from ever reaching our planet, making this the only natural disaster we can completely prevent. And it all starts with something as brilliant as it is absurd: build a spacecraft like none other, find an asteroid, slam into it as fast as possible, and deflect it—a trial run for saving a city, a country, or even the world. 

Voyaging across the world, from America to Japan, from Botswana to Russia, before journeying millions of miles through space, HOW TO KILL AN ASTEROID tells the propulsive true story of how a maverick team of madcap scientists and eccentric engineers plan to prevent an inevitable future asteroid impact by creating Earth’s planetary defense system—one that ultimately hinges on whether humanity’s very first attempt to dramatically deflect an asteroid succeeds or fails. And it only took a prison break, Oppenheimer, a small city in North Carolina volunteering to be hit by an asteroid, two robots stealing cosmic matter from the dawn of time, blowing up cotton candy with a very big gun, several exploding alien intruders exploding, a planet killer comet striking Jupiter, priceless extraterrestrial material being hidden in a British shopping bag, a spy inside the sun’s vast shadow, a giant hole in the middle of Arizona, a small Italian box in deep space, Star Wars, Star Trek, a wild idea by someone in the U.S. Air Force, and a heck of a lot of people looking up, to get there.

.02

Science Writing

Here's a selection of some of my favourite articles, from the mind and pen (well, keyboard) of yours truly. Bylines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, The Washington Post, New Scientist, Vox, Supercluster, The New Yorker, Earther, Gizmodo, CNN, Forbes, WIRED, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Nature, Science Magazine, The Verge, Atlas Obscura, The Daily Beast, Discover Magazine, Earth Touch News Network, The Conversation, The London Economic, and more.

Science on stage

You're right: that's not a stage there. That's the sky, which I enjoy falling through from time to time. I look like a right plonker on stage, but I do love it. Making science funny is something I'd happily spend a lot more time on, and so far, people are either enjoying laughing with me a lot, or at me. Either way, they're laughing, and all laughter around me is recorded and the data is set to the world's best gelotologist (an expert in the science of laughter, don't you know) so that, together, we can come up with a vaccine to sadness. Or something.

I've given talks and lectures at various primary and secondary schools around the country on why science is wicked, how we can get more boys and girls into STEM fields, what we can do to fight against alternative facts, and introductions to new media and science communication. I've stood on stage at Cheltenham Science Festival, Ratio in Sofia and the Large Hadron Collidor at London's magnificent Science Museum, and from time to time, I've appeared alongside some of the other deliriously silly science communicators in Science Showoff.

I've also been allowed to give lectures on science communication at a few universities, including at Imperial College London and University College London in the UK, at New York’s Columbia University and at the University of Vermont.

I'm addicted. More, please.

Volcanology

I'm a doctor of volcanoes. It's like geology, but for impatient people. Here's a little tale of what research I used to be involved in.

Show me some science!

I used to study maar-diatreme systems, the second most common type of volcano in the world. In recent decades, major fieldwork studies have greatly advanced our knowledge of these violent formations; despite this, much of the interpretation is strongly debated.

My original contribution to volcanological research is twofold: firstly, successfully simulating maar-diatreme systems using analogue experimentation in order to determine the processes that generate them; secondly, using mathematical modelling to produce a predictive model for their total energy release during an eruption. This study uses a tripartite, quantitative approach: (1) bench-scale experiments are used to generate simulated maar-diatreme volcanoes and examine their eruption and depositional processes; (2) these are qualitatively compared and quantitatively scaled to both field-scale experiments and natural maar-diatreme volcanoes; and (3) the 1886 maar-forming Rotomahana eruption is used as a case study for a new thermodynamic model which gives a first-order calculation of the cumulative energy change during the event.

A new conceptual model of maar-diatreme formation is conceived based on a synthesis of the findings of this thesis, which you can download here if you’re feeling so inclined. I published a few papers in a couple of academic journals, which was, er, fun.

What the hell was that? Explain it to me like i'm not a scientist, please.

Maar-diatreme volcanoes are weird depressions that erupt and form once, when magma and water explosively mix. No-one’s really sure how this type of eruption – a “phreatomagmatic” blast – forms maars, which is a shame, because they tend to kill plenty of people. Considering that my case study eruption site in new Zealand wasn’t available to visit for various, curious reasons, I used artificial volcanoes, both in laboratories and in field-scale experiments, along with a sprinkling of mathematics and a pitch of physics, to try and solve all of the things.

I did not solve all of the things, but I did produce a new model suggesting a) these volcanoes form in a few different ways, and b) putting volcanoes in rigidly defined classification boxes isn’t helpful.

Still not getting it.

There are volcanoes called maars, and they are violent and mysterious in both their eruptions styles and formation. I made fake volcanoes – with the help of a fantastic research team scattered all over the world – to try and find out.

I found some of the things out, but not all of the things.

Uh huh. So, got any papers published?

Yep. Here's one in Geophysical Research Letters, another in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, and another in the Journal of the Geological Society.

What was the weirdest Part of your research?

I now know a lot more about nuclear weapons than I thought I would. The craters left behind by these mechanical monsters are oddly similar to those created during certain phreatomagmatic eruptions.

Can you speak to volcanoes or something?

No, sadly not. That would be a great superpower though.

If you fell into a volcano, would you survive?

Yes! But that’s only because the volcanoes I studied don’t have lava flowing inside their craters. They basically die as soon as they form, which, you know, is dramatic of them.

Can chris pratt and his dinosaurs outrun a pyroclastic flow?

Sadly, no. His head might even explode when it catches up to him.

Yeesh. You must be fun at parties.

Oi.

.05

CONTACT Robin

Tell me I’m wrong about volcanoes, or whatever you wish, using this magical form, all without even opening your email. What a time to be alive, eh?