Dr. Hermann Sicius, born in Düsseldorf in 1958, is a chemist, translator and author. Even as a young man, he read the standard works of chemical literature. After graduating at the University in Düsseldorf, he worked in the chemical industry. In some years, he traveled five months a year around the world for private and professional reasons, getting to know many cultures and an even larger number of cities and landscapes worldwide, ranging from South America to the Far East and Australia. His diverse foreign language skills were of great benefit to him. However, his interests are not limited to chemistry and languages. Furthermore, he is very interested in geography and the geosciences, which led him to develop the idea of a non-fiction book on the history of the earth, volcanism and earthquake activity, to address the question of whether we can prevent earthquake catastrophes or at least minimize their consequences.