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This book provides an introduction to ocean sciences that is engaging, evocative and accessible to non-experts interested in marine geoscience, while sparking readers' interest in important unsolved mysteries in marine science. The scope of Mysterious Ocean is quite broad, but focuses on the physical ocean and its geological evolution, including the author's experiences working as an oceanographer over the last thirty years. Across ten chapters, the book traces the origins of the ocean from its formation 4 billion years ago, reviews the discoveries of the theory of plate tectonics, the ice ages and the great ocean conveyor, and discusses seafloor features (canyons, seamounts, trenches, abyssal plains, etc.), how they formed and their current environmental issues. The book concludes with a prognosis for the future ocean we might expect with global climate change and other human impacts.
1. The ocean begins
2. Oceans created - oceans destroyed
3. Where did continents come from?
4. How deep is the ocean?
5. The ocean in motion!
6. The lungs of the ocean
7. Frozen ocean - ice ages and climate change
8. The continental shelf
9. The face of the deep
10. An ocean of mysteries
Dr. Peter Townsend Harris has a PhD in geological oceanography and over 30 years of experience working on and writing about the oceans. He worked at the University of Sydney 1986-93 as a post-doc and lecturer, for Geoscience Australia 1994-2014 and is presently the CEO of GRID-Arendal in Norway. In 2010 he was appointed by the Australian Government to be a member of the United Nations Group of Experts for the first World Ocean Assessment (WOA). In 2014 he took his present position as CEO of GRID-Arendal, a science communication organisation created by the Norwegian government to support the UN Environment Programme.
