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The world's oceans are changing at a drastic pace. Beneath the waves and along the coasts, climate change and environmental degradation have spurred the most radical transformations in human history. In response, the people who know the ocean most intimately are taking action for the sake of our shared future. Citizen scientists track species in California tidepools. Researchers dive into the waters around Sydney to replant kelp forests. Scientists and First Nations communities collaborate to restore clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest.
In At Every Depth, the oceanographer Tessa Hill and the science journalist Eric Simons profile these and other efforts to understand and protect marine environments, taking readers to habitats from shallow tidepools to the deep sea. They delve into the many human connections to the ocean – how people live with and make their living from the waters – journeying to places as far-flung as coral reefs, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the Arctic and Antarctic poles. At Every Depth shares the stories of people from all walks of life, including scientists, coastal community members, Indigenous people, shellfish farmers, and fisheries workers. It brings together varied viewpoints, showing how scientists' research and local and Indigenous knowledge can complement each other to inform a more sustainable future. Poignantly written and grounded in science, this book offers a narrative perspective on the changing oceans, letting us see how our relationships to the oceans are changing too.
Tessa Hill is a professor in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at the University of California, Davis, who teaches and researches oceanography and climate change. She is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Eric Simons is a science writer who was a longtime editor at Bay Nature magazine. He is the author of Darwin Slept Here (2009) and The Secret Lives of Sports Fans (2013). In addition to writing about science, nature, and the ocean, he teaches high school math.
"At Every Depth pulls us on underwater timelines from rocky shore surveys to diminishing riches on coral reefs to the once trackless deep sea and chronicles for every major habitat in the oceans the greatest discoveries and changes. "The ocean cannot tell its own story [...] " so the riveting stories of indigenous peoples, scientists, and explorers who chart inroads, solutions, and forecasts are brilliant for all students of the oceans from college classrooms to nonexperts."
– Drew Harvell, author of Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease and A Sea of Glass: Searching for the Blaschka's Fragile Legacy in an Ocean at Risk
"The greatest strength of At Every Depth is its storytelling, with tales of scientific investigation and in exploring indigenous peoples' connection to the sea and how ocean changes lead to shifts in tradition and communities. The authors effectively provide information and inspire with emotion."
– Ellen Prager, author of Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans' Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter
"This is one of the best books I've read in a really long time. Tessa Hill is an amazing scientist and Eric Simons is a very talented writer – together they've developed one heck of a book, interweaving personal narrative and scientific research in perfect balance."
– Angee Doerr, Oregon State University
"An incisive look at a world in crisis."
– Publishers Weekly
"A top 8 science book to look for in early 2024."
– Book Riot
