Ultimate Oceanpedia: The Most Complete Ocean Reference Ever
INTRODUCTION Water water everywhere That's Earth a rocky planet with an ocean that covers nearly three fourths of its surface We humans are land dwellers with bodies adapted to breathe air and walk We live work and play on land even if we sometimes jump into water to swim sail or surf But even though we feel at home on land many creatures feel more at home in water It's estimated that as much as 80 percent of all organisms live in the ocean In fact about 99 percent of all habitable space on Earth is in the ocean Habitable space is where life can survive The ocean offers habitable space from its surface to its depths and in all the water in between The remaining one percent of habitable space is made up of the land surface where you and I live along with everything from ants to zebras The ocean also produces about half the oxygen in the atmosphere a gas that most living things including plants need to survive The ocean and the atmosphere are constantly interacting Winds blow across the water building waves and pushing currents cooling or warming the water and picking up water vapor The ocean likewise cools or warms the air and that water vapor turns into clouds that later pour out rain or snow Raindrops that fall on the head of a person in a desert may have started out as water vapor far from the shore Amazing animals and other organisms make themselves at home in on and around the sea Many marine animals are familiar to us think of whales sharks polar bears penguins and octopuses But the ocean is also full of organisms that look like creatures dreamed up by a science fiction writer fish that light up sea cucumbers that eject their guts when alarmed and zombie worms that eat the bones of dead whales As a kid I spent many happy hours digging in the sand and watching birds on East Coast beaches of the United States As an adult I've lived near the crashing waves and rocky shores of the northwestern United States I have truly enjoyed researching oceans to write Oceanpedia and I hope you enjoy diving into its pages too cushion sea star CHRISTINA WILSDON SCIENCE WRITER AND AUTHOR OF ULTIMATE OCEANPEDIA
sea cucumber Close your eyes and imagine that you are deep in the sea It is dark and cold and you hear the sound of whales coming from miles away Some of the strange and wonderful creatures you encounter will think you want to eat them others will ponder how good you might taste You are much larger than most of the creatures you meet so you feel pretty safe As you get used to being under the ocean the deep sea begins to fill with small flashes of light Looking like fireflies dancing in the air on a summer's evening that light could be fish communicating with each other or using light to attract something to eat Shrimp might flash light as a warning sign to stay away or an octopus could release a trail of light as it flees a predator It is an eerie fascinating world The ocean is so vast that much of it still remains unexplored Every year new creatures are discovered and new underwater mountains are studied The ocean influences a vast array of things such as the composition of the air we breathe and the temperature outside your house right now To say that we rely on the ocean is perhaps a surprise since we don't live in it but it's true Without our oceans we would not be able to survive As an oceanographer I find that there is little better than being on the sea that's where I conduct research and try to unravel some of the mysteries of the ocean My job brings me across the world and shows me again and again how beautiful Earth is especially its ocean The ocean can be calm and peaceful raging and angry crystal clear or cloudy with sediment cold or warm hospitable or unforgiving Whatever the ocean's mood it is always alive and calling to us to explore and understand it Enjoy your exploration with this book and I hope one day to see you out on the oceans with me spot fin porcupinefish RICK KEIL OCEANOGRAPHER UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
DISCOVERING THE OCEAN A harp seal's plumpness helps keep it warm in the icy waters along Canada's coast The pyramid butterflyfish lives on tropical coral reefs in parts of the Pacific
Some sea creatures look like plants but they're actually animals that feed on plankton A nudibranch which is a kind of sea slug creeps across a living sponge A lemon shark prowls among the roots of mangrove trees in tropical
