The wake of HMS Challenger : how a legendary Victorian voyage tells the story of our oceans' decline / Gillen D'Arcy Wood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wood, Gillen D'Arcy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Challenger Expedition (1872-1876).

Challenger Expedition.

Challenger (Ship : 1858-1878).

Oceanography--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Oceanography.

Oceanography--History.

Climatic changes.

Biodiversity.

Marine biology.

climate change.

marine biology.

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

xii, 311 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Other Title:

How a legendary Victorian voyage tells the story of our oceans' decline

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"In December 1872, HMS Challenger embarked on the first round-the-world oceanographic expedition. Its goal: to shine a light for the first time on the mysteries of the deep sea. For the next four years, Challenger's naturalists explored the oceans, encountering never-before-seen marvels of marine life. The expedition's achievements are the stuff of legend. It identified major ocean currents and defining features of the seafloor, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Mariana Trench. It measured worldwide sea temperatures and chemistry, creating baseline data for all ocean research since. And, most spectacularly of all, it collected nearly five thousand sea creatures and plants new to science. The Challenger's scientists had no way of knowing that the incredible undersea aquarium they were documenting was on the verge of catastrophic change. Off Portugal, they encountered a brilliant starfish now threatened with extinction by microplastics; in St. Thomas, teeming coral habitats that today have been decimated by ocean warming; and at remote Ascension Island, the breeding grounds of the now-endangered green turtle. Lyrical and elegiac, this book offers a stunning before-and-after picture of our global oceans. It is both a reminder of what we have lost since the Victorian age and an urgent call to preserve what remains of the diverse life and wild beauty of our planet's final frontier." -- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction: The Beach Philosophers

Embrittled Star

Skeletons from the Ooze

The Fire Reefs

Wide Sargasso Seaweed

Darkness Visible

Heyday of the Octopus

Brooch Clams and Hairy Mussels

The Recklessness of Beauty

The Challenger Deep

A Salmon's Pilgrimage

Death of a Naturalist

Message from the Cosmos

Dream of the Green Turtles.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780691233246

0691233241

OCLC:

1513557597