In the spirit of Bill Bryson and Ian Frazier comes this fascinating examination of our past, present, and future beneath the waves.
In the spirit of Bill Bryson and Ian Frazier comes this fascinating examination of our past, present, and future beneath the waves.
In an age of unprecedented exploration and innovation, our oceans remain largely unknown, and endlessly fascinating: full of mystery, danger, beauty, and inspiration. In Oceans Deep celebrates the daring pioneers who tested the limits of what the human body can endure under water: free divers able to reach 300 feet on a single breath; engineers and scientists who uncovered the secrets of decompression; teenagers who built their own diving gear from discarded boilers and garden hoses in the 1930s; saturation divers who lived under water for weeks at a time in the 1960s; and the trailblazing men who voluntarily breathed experimental gases at pressures sufficient to trigger insanity.
Tracing both the little-known history and exciting future of how we travel and study the depths, Streever's captivating journey includes seventeenth-century leather-hulled submarines, their nuclear-powered descendants, a workshop where luxury submersibles are built for billionaire clients, and robots capable of roving unsupervised between continents, revolutionizing access to the ocean.In this far-flung trip to the wild, night-dark place of shipwrecks, trapped submariners, oil wells, innovative technologies, and people willing to risk their lives while challenging the deep, we discover all the adventures our seas have to offer -- and why they are in such dire need of conservation.“"Science, history, and personal adventure come together in a wild and witty exploration of wind. When Streever deals with a natural phenomenon, he does so with aplomb...[he] has a knack for blending his research and personal experience into an easy-to-read account that is hard to put down."-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)”
"A broad-spectrum examination of underwater adventuring...Mr. Streever's writing is lucid on subjects ranging from gas chemistry to dredging to underwater robotics."--Wall Street Journal
"A buoyant, at times thrilling, account of the deep sea experience, perfect for divers and other lovers of life beneath the waves."-- Kirkus Review
"A fascinating...journey for readers into a little-known world."--Anchorage Daily News
"A fine writer with genuine sea credentials...Streever's book makes clear that the deep, though much closer to us, is still tantalizingly distant."--Natural History Magazine
"In this homage-cum-history of human endeavor in the ocean depths, biologist, writer and diver Bill Streever brings to light a region less explored than the Moon."--Nature Magazine
"Streever tells a story that captures human fascination with the ocean, and encourages readers to become more interested in what lies beneath the waves."--Shelf Awareness
"Ultimately, this timely and richly told story became something the author did not intend: an invaluable survey of how much damage has
been done and how much we will lose if we don't protect the seas."--Booklist
Bill Streever is the bestselling and award-winning authors of And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind, Cold, and Heat. As a biologist, he has worked on issues ranging from climate change to the restoration of Arctic tundra to underwater noise to the evolution of cave crayfish. With his wife and co-captain, he splits his time between Alaska and their cruising sailboat, currently in Central America.
In an age of unprecedented exploration and innovation, our oceans remain largely unknown, and endlessly fascinating: full of mystery, danger, beauty, and inspiration. In Oceans Deep celebrates the daring pioneers who tested the limits of what the human body can endure under water: free divers able to reach 300 feet on a single breath; engineers and scientists who uncovered the secrets of decompression; teenagers who built their own diving gear from discarded boilers and garden hoses in the 1930s; saturation divers who lived under water for weeks at a time in the 1960s; and the trailblazing men who voluntarily breathed experimental gases at pressures sufficient to trigger insanity.Tracing both the little-known history and exciting future of how we travel and study the depths, Streever's captivating journey includes seventeenth-century leather-hulled submarines, their nuclear-powered descendants, a workshop where luxury submersibles are built for billionaire clients, and robots capable of roving unsupervised between continents, revolutionizing access to the ocean.In this far-flung trip to the wild, night-dark place of shipwrecks, trapped submariners, oil wells, innovative technologies, and people willing to risk their lives while challenging the deep, we discover all the adventures our seas have to offer -- and why they are in such dire need of conservation.
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