Cramer, Deborah. Great waters; an Atlantic passage.Norton. 442p. maps. notes. index. c2001. 0-393-32334-X. $15.95. SA To say that this title is about oceanography oceanography, study of the seas and oceans. The major divisions of oceanography include the geological study of the ocean floor (see plate tectonics) and features; physical oceanography, which is concerned with the physical attributes of the ocean water, such as currents and temperature; chemical oceanography, which focuses on the chemistry of ocean waters; marine biology, the study of the oceanic flora and fauna; and, in meteorology, the interaction between the would be the same as calling the Iliad (language, real-time) ILIAD - A real-time language. ["On the Design of a Language for Programming Real-Time Concurrent Processes", H.A. Schutz, IEEE Trans Soft Eng SE-5(3):248-255, May 1979]. a book about an ancient war. The subject is the Atlantic Ocean--or simply "Atlantic," as Cramer calls it--but its theme is vastly wider: a menage of geology, marine biology marine biology, study of ocean plants and animals and their ecological relationships. Marine organisms may be classified (according to their mode of life) as nektonic, planktonic, or benthic. Nektonic animals are those that swim and migrate freely, e.g., adult fishes, whales, and squid. Planktonic organisms, usually very small or microscopic, have little or no power of locomotion and merely drift or float in the water., tectonics, oceanic chemistry, meteorology meteorology, branch of science that deals with the atmosphere of a planet, particularly that of the earth, the most important application of which is the analysis and prediction of weather. Individual studies within meteorology include aeronomy, the study of the physics of the upper atmosphere; aerology, the study of free air not adjacent to the earth's surface; applied meteorology, the application of weather data for specific practical problems; dynamic and numerous other disciplines, all blended together in a matrix of awed AWED - Around the World in Eighty Days (book) speculation and passionate wonder. Oddly enough, all of this works. Ostensibly, the author is describing the birth, life, and eventual eroding away of one of the earth's most significant oceanic basins. In actuality, she is leading the reader across the geography and probable weather patterns of the titanic proto-continent Pangea, eons before Atlantic began as a chain of shallow lakes along a minor depression. Other chapters find her in the abyssal deeps of the world-ocean Tethys Tethys, in astronomyTethys (tē`thĭs), in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn III (or S3), Tethys is 659 mi (1060 km) in diameter, orbits Saturn at a mean distance of 183,093 mi (294,660 km), and has equal orbital and rotational periods of 1.8878 earth days., tasting the chemistry of the seawater and sifting through the crystalline intricacies of the one-celled diatoms diatom /di·a·tom/ (di´ah-tom) a unicellular microscopic form of alga having a cell wall of silica. raining down to create future cliffs and shoals of limestone. She conjures up the appearance and feeding behaviors of myriad creatures known to us only by their faint traces in a rocky matrix, and awes us with descriptions of the vast and implacable forces that sculpt our globe. The goal of all this is, of course, not just a mere portrayal of an ocean and its corollary systems; it is an appreciation and a beginning of understanding of Gala itself, the earth and its numberless life forms.This book is a natural for those who thumb through old copies of The World We Live In, and will be a great mind-opener for all YAs who can be induced to open its pages. Raymond L. Puffer puffer, common name for some tropical marine fish of the family Tetraodontidae. The puffers and their allies, the boxfish, the porcupinefish, and the ocean sunfish or headfish, form an odd group (order Tetraodontiformes). The puffers, or swellfishes, named for their ability to inflate their bodies to three times normal size, are found all along the Atlantic coast, e.g., the northern puffer (Sphaeroides maculatus), and in the Pacific., Ph.D., Historian, Edwards Air Force Base, CA |
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