Mapping the Deep - Robert Kunzig
The extraordinary story of ocean science. ROBERT KUNZIG.
"Meticulously researched and elegantly written,
this book answers questions about the ocean I didn’t
even know I had . . . anyone who loves the sea should
read this book."Sebastian Junger, author of The
Perfect Storm
A vivid, up-to-date tour of the Earth's
last frontier, a remote and mysterious realm that nonetheless
lies close to the heart of even the most land-locked
reader. The sea covers seven-tenths of the Earth, but
we have mapped only a small percentage of it. |
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The sea contains millions of species of animals and
plants, but we have identified only a few thousand of
them. The sea controls our planet's climate, but we do
not really understand how. The sea is still the frontier,
and yet it seems so familiar that we sometimes forget
how little we know about it. Just as we are poised on
the verge of exploiting the sea on an unprecedented scale-mining
it, fertilizing it, fishing it out-this book reminds
us of how much we have yet to learn. More than that,
it chronicles the knowledge explosion that has transformed
our view of the sea in just the past few decades, and
made it a far more interesting and accessible place.
From the Big Bang to that far-off future time, two billion
years from now, when our planet will be a waterless rock;
from the lush crowds of life at seafloor hot springs
to the invisible, jewel-like plants that float at the
sea surface; from the restless shifting of the tectonic
plates to the majestic sweep of the ocean currents, Kunzig's
clear and lyrical prose transports us to the ends of
the Earth. 8 pages of color, 20 black-and-white illustrations.
Originally published in hardcover as The Restless Sea. |
