Mapping the Deep - The extraordinary story of ocean science (Paperback, Main)

This book starts at the very bottom of the vast ocean and slowly drifts up. It begins with an extremely detailed description of the sea bed, 'to show what the ocean might look like on a waterless day'. We float slowly past the summits of submerged seamounts, gliding through mid water, passing thousands of jellyfish. By the time we reach the surface at the end, we're literally gasping for air. Since its origins, ocean science seems to have been conducted by a cast of lovable eccentrics: the machines these men depended upon were no less colourful. The bathyscape is perhaps the most bizarre, named so for obvious reasons once you see the picture of it. Designed by Auguste Piccard, who held the record for the highest ascent in a balloon, in 1960 the bathyscape carried two scientists into the deepest chasm on Earth, the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. This book explores and illuminates the light-deprived deep ocean. 'We live at a time when the outside chance of finding a fossil bacterium on Mars is enough time to generate tremendous enthusiasm for billion-dollar missions of exploration to that planet.And yet we are content to pass over in complacency and almost total ignorance 'the largest and strangest habitat on Earth' writes Kunzig.This book goes a long way towards shaking our complacency and alleviating that ignorance. Review by Dea Birkett Editor's note: Dea Birkett's latest book is Serpent in Paradise about Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. (Kirkus UK)

The scientific exploration of the ocean is an extraordinary story. Hundreds have climbed Everest yet only two people have descended, in a homespun 'bathyscaphe', to the very depths of the deepest sea chasm. Amazing oases teeming with life have been found in deep sea volcanic vents but we have hardly begun to identify their resident species. We know that sea currents control our climate but we don't know how. Ocean scientists are pretty sure that we could reverse the greenhouse effect by manipulating plankton blooms with doses of iron ... but fear we might trigger an ice age in the act. Mapping the Deep is a state-of-the-ocean report on the sea and its science. After amazing you at how little you know of the ocean, Kunzig swiftly draws you into a compelling narrative of oceanographers past and present - scientists, pioneers, maverick thinkers, deep water divers and submersible pilots. Like all the best science books, this is a hugely informative page-turner that confirms Robert Kunzig's position in the top rank of popular science writers.

General

Imprint:	Sort Of Books
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	June 2000
Authors:	Robert Kunzig
Dimensions:	197 x 126 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	225
Edition:	Main
ISBN-13:	978-0-9535227-1-2
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Popular science Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > The hydrosphere > Oceanography (seas)
LSN:	0-9535227-1-7
Barcode:	9780953522712

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