The Silent Landscape: The Scientific Voyage of Hms Challenger

by Corfield, R. M.

• ISBN13: 9780309089043
• ISBN10: 0309089042
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Natl Academy Pr

Summary

The oceans make up more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface. But they are as mysterious for what they conceal beneath their surfaces as they are familiar for their ubiquity. Deep below the familiar swell of waves lies an alien world that we have only begun to explore. The quest to know more about this secret domain began in earnest in the late 1800s. In 1859, Charles Darwin's book "Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection set the scientific world abuzz with its theories on evolution. Scientists became increasingly convinced that the ocean floor could provide proof--or refutation--of Darwin's theory of natural selection. They believed that the deep sea was a haven for life that had long been extinct on land and that obscure fossil evidence culled from the depths could provide us with information on species that no longer existed topside. With its emphasis on locating and retrieving fossil records, that would test the new theory of evolution, "Challenger's voyage was nothing less than a mission to choose between God and science. Sailing three and a half

Author Biography

Richard Corfield is an earth scientist and science writer based at Oxford University. Educated at Bristol and Cambridge in the United Kingdom, he is a regular feature writer for popular magazines in the natural sciences. Professor Corfield lives in West Oxfordshire, England, with his wife and two children

Table of Contents

Frontispiece	x
Prologue	xi
Threshold of the Deep	1	(24)
The Desert Under the Sea	25	(20)
The Restless Earth	45	(16)
Kingdoms of Mud and Lime	61	(14)
Climate Triggers and Bermudan Secrets	75	(25)
Kelp and Cold Light	100	(27)
The Library of Time	127	(20)
The Grim Latitudes	147	(13)
The Lost world	160	(16)
The Echoes of Evolution	176	(19)
The Groaning Planet	195	(27)
Dreams of Big Science	222	(27)
Epilogue	249	(6)
Acknowledgments	255	(2)
Further Reading	257	(4)
Index	261