Komatiite

Three specialists, each with long experience in the field, offer a thorough survey of komatiites. The book covers their volcanic forms, textures, minerals and chemistry, and it weighs the competing models for how these rocks form and erupt. One unresolved dispute is whether komatiites come from dry or water-bearing magmas.

Stephen Barnes and Michael Lesher each contribute a chapter. One addresses volcanology, and the other examines the nickel and copper ore deposits that some komatiites contain.

The work is aimed at researchers and advanced students in petrology, Archaean geology and economic geology. It also speaks to larger questions about how Earth's crust and mantle have changed over time.