Review by Booklist Review
Marine biologist Scales takes readers into the deep sea in this vivid and luminous title. With occasional forays into history, including Ernst Haeckel's illustrative work on sea creatures, and references to Moby-Dick and whaling, Scales writes of the astonishingly small group of scientists (there are only about 500 people worldwide identifying as "full-time deep-sea biologists") who explore the ocean's greatest depths. While the chapter on the Yeti crab will likely be the most memorable (not "true crabs," as Scales explains, but "technically squat lobsters"), it is the author's lush descriptive language and the breadth of her knowledge that truly stand out. (The mere mention of the ever-growing World Register of Deep-Sea Species should particularly excite armchair travelers.) Her attention to everything we do not know about the deep and the many threats to this fragile ecosystem is extremely important as well. The question, Scales insists in this compelling title, should not be so much what the deep can do for us (feed us, cure us, save us), but rather what we must be willing to do for the oceans and every wondrous thing that lives there, given that our very existence depends on the health of the planet's seas.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Marine biologist Scales (Eye of the Shoal) tours the lightless depths of the ocean and showcases its denizens in this show-stopping work. She begins by pointing out that sunlight can't penetrate below 3,300 feet below sea level, and the average depth of the oceans is 12,500 feet. This zone beyond light's reach "is home to countless unimaginable life-forms," such as deep-diving sperm whales, gelatinous jellyfish, strange colony animals called siphonophores that can reach 150 feet in length, and extremely rare iron-shelled scaly-foot snails. Seamounts, huge underwater mountains that can dwarf their terrestrial cousins, also host a dizzying array of life. Scales stresses the importance that the ocean plays in maintaining human life as a critical part of Earth's climate mechanism and as a potential source of medicines, particularly antibiotics; she also warns of the many ways humanity threatens ocean life, such as overfishing, dumping toxic waste, and mining beneath the sea floor. Scales concludes with a convincing plea for creating "a sanctuary in the deep," an international agreement in which the unexplored depths of the ocean are protected from industry, but open to science. This vivid survey hits the mark as an awe-filled paean to the mysteries of the deep. Agent: Margaret Sutherland Brown, Folio Literary. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Scales (marine biology, Cambridge Univ.) introduces readers to the deep ocean, which begins where photosynthesis stops, 660 feet below the surface. Humans have interacted almost exclusively with the ocean's surface and edges, but the deep comprises far more of the ocean's volume and is likely more vital to the continuation of life on earth, Scales writes. Her book is in four sections: "Explore," about the geography, chemistry, and life of the deep; "Depend," on the abyss that makes Earth habitable by sequestering carbon; "Exploit," which tells of overfishing, underwater strip-mining, and dumping (everything from plastics to dead livestock to a radioactive generator from Apollo 13; and "Preserve," which relates efforts underway to preserve the deep ocean from further exploitation by mining companies or the fishing industry. Scales concludes with a list of actions necessary to preserve the global abyss: pressuring governments to enact protective laws and treaties; supporting NGOs with the same goals; refusing to eat seafood that is extracted from the deep ocean; decreasing use of plastics; and lowering our carbon footprints. VERDICT A fascinating international glimpse of Earth's last frontier that will draw in readers concerned for the health of our oceans.--Rachel Owens, Daytona State Coll. Lib., FL
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An investigative foray into the world of deep-sea waters with a veteran marine biologist. "This is without a doubt a golden era for deep-sea exploration," writes Scales in this beguiling journey into the ocean's deep, a wondrous landscape full of mystery and adventure: "Here lie entire ecosystems shut away in the dark that are based around the chemical powers of microbes, where worms are nine feet long, crabs dance, and snails grow suits of shiny metal armor." At the same time, however, the ever increasing knowledge of the abyss leads to further evidence that there is money to be made by harvesting the resources held there. Scales begins by describing the deep sea's uniqueness and biodiversity. She examines many of its miraculous denizens, such as the "bone-eating snot flower," found off the coast of Sweden; the ultra-black fish; and gossamer worms, which "wriggle elegantly in tight pirouettes through the water." Scales also discusses such features as seamounts, coral beds, and hydrothermal vents as well as chemical reactions such as bioluminescence and chemosynthesis (the dark equivalent of photosynthesis). Tracking the massive circulatory patterns of the ocean currents, the author demonstrates how they are disrupted by the forces of climate change, and she looks into possible medical advances that could originate from the ocean floor, including chemotherapy ingredients, genetic-testing materials, and new antibiotics. As in her two previous books, Spirals in Time and Eyes of the Shoal, Scales offers crisp, engaging prose, linking everything together in an accessible, entertaining manner. With plenty of scientific research to back her up, the author displays legitimate concerns about a wide variety of maladies, including plastic waste, raw sewage, oil spills, radioactive elements, and deep-sea mining, which "pose[s] dangerous risks to biodiversity and the environment, on timescales and intensities that cannot yet be fully quantified but could be catastrophic and permanent." A captivating nature tour and a convincing warning that "the deep needs decisive, unconditional protection." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
