Into the Great Wide Ocean : Life in the Least Known Habitat on Earth, reviewed

We look at the new book by Sönke Johnsen. See more about Into the Great Wide Ocean : Life in the Least Known Habitat on Earth here.

Into the Great Wide Ocean Life in the Least Known Habitat on Earth

This book is a little bit different from some that we have reviewed about the sea and various popular science tracts about it. Turns out this is not necessarily a bad thing, and we have already recommended to some other people already. There is a lot more about the author in this book than you will find in some others in this field. There is a good reason for this however, as Johnsen wants to take you on his journey into why he loves what he does, and what exactly it is that he does, and does not do. Depending on your familiarity with scuba diving and deeper sea exploration some of this may seem quite prosaic and descriptive, but, at the same time it serves as a good introduction for those looking to make a deeper dive (terrible pun we know) into this whole area of exploration.

The authors passion and enthusiasm for his work means that this quite nuts and bolts approach actually works quite well. He aims to take away the glamour, if you felt it was such, for deep sea exploration and learning more about the sea. At the same time though, with some lovely drawn illustrations too, he takes the reader on an informative and thought provoking discussion of how science is conducted out in some of the worlds, still relatively unknown to us, oceans. The physics of scuba diving, nitrogen narcosis and more, are also thoughtfully well explained. If this book inspires more people to study in this field then the book will have doubly been a success, as well as proving an interesting read for those of us who are now armchair scuba divers.

More about this book

The open ocean, far from the shore and miles above the seafloor, is a vast and formidable habitat that is home to the most abundant life on our planet, from giant squid and jellyfish to anglerfish with bioluminescent lures that draw prey into their toothy mouths. Into the Great Wide Ocean takes readers inside the peculiar world of the seagoing scientists who are providing tantalizing new insights into how the animals of the open ocean solve the problems of their existence.

Sönke Johnsen vividly describes how life in the water column of the open sea contends with a host of environmental challenges, such as gravity, movement, the absence of light, pressure that could crush a truck, catching food while not becoming food, finding a mate, raising young, and forming communities. He interweaves stories about the joys and hardships of the scientists who explore this beautiful and mysterious realm, which is under threat from human activity and rapidly changing before our eyes.

Into the Great Wide Ocean presents the sea and its inhabitants as you have never seen them before and reminds us that the rules of survival in the open ocean, though they may seem strange to us, are the primary rules of life on Earth.

Sönke Johnsen is professor of biology at Duke University. He is the author of The Optics of Life: A Biologist’s Guide to Light in Nature and the coauthor of Visual Ecology (both Princeton).

Marlin Peterson, who created original illustrations for this book, is an illustrator and muralist who teaches and illustrates in many styles and media. He also specializes in giant optical illusions such as his harvestmen mural below the Space Needle in Seattle, and his full portfolio can be found at marlinpeterson.com.

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