Atsushi Toramaru is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Kyushu University. He graduated from the Department of Earth Sciences, Kobe University. He completed the master’s and doctoral programs in the Department of Geophysics at The University of Tokyo, where he received a PhD. After receiving a scholarship as a researcher from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), he was an assistant professor then an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Kanazawa University. Concurrently with his appointment at Kanazawa University, he attended Arizona State University in the USA as a JSPS young scientist abroad for 2 years and Bristol University (UK) as a MEXT scientist abroad for 8 months. His interests pertain to understanding rock texture on the basis of kinetics, the behavior of magma by fluid mechanics, and the physics of rock patterns such as columnar joint and layered intrusion.

• - Inspired by nature.- Conditions for magma vesiculation.- Mechanism of bubble formation.- Growth and expansion of bubbles.- Temporal development of vesiculation.- Other bubble-related processes.- Cooling crystallization of magma.- Crystallization induced by vesiculation.- CSD (Crystal Size Distribution).- Application.- Appendix.