Hey gang,

So my finals for Oceanography is coming up and the teacher has posted an extra credit opportunity.

"Find a quotation that is somehow related to oceanography (be creative) from some historical source (fiction or non-fiction). For bonus credit, write the quotation, tell me the source and author, and explain how it relates to what you learned in this class."[I]

Since she mentioned Fiction or Non-fiction, Numa works! I can explain how the qoute would relate to my class but I need some help finding good qoutes among all of Clive's stories. Anyone want to help me out and throw down some book qoutes about Oceanography?

have fun with it too!

thanks cop:

Somewhere on the forum is a thread where someone would post a quote and we'd have to guess what book it came from. It's either in the Books category or the General Topics one. If you look back far enough I'm sure you'll find it. Happy Hunting, and good luck on your assignment!

Ah, oceanography...my favorite topic.

Unfortunately, NUMA hasn't done nearly as much in the field as I would like. However, IMHO, the best Dirk Pitt story dealing with the ocean as a living ecosystem was Sahara.

There's a section (it's on page 314 in my old paperback edition) where Admiral Sandecker is trying to explain the danger of the red tide bloom and how, if unchecked, it will consume all the ocean's oxygen, which would in turn prove fatal to all life on earth. He uses a famous doubling model.

"Let me give you a little illustration, in simplified terms. Imagine the red tide could double itself in size every week. If allowed to spread unhindered, it would cover every square kilometer of the earth's oceans in one hundred weeks. If history repeats itself, wor;d governments will decide to shove aside the problem until the oceans are half covered. Only then do they institute a crash program to eliminate the red tide. My question to you ...is what week will the oceans be covered by the tide, and how much time until the world can prevent disaster?

"The answer is the oceans will be half covered in ninety-nine weeks and you would have only one week to act."

This is a famous scenario, used to demonstrate the difference between mathematical and exponential increase. Of course, most systems in the real world do not show such unchecked growth, but the illustration is useful nonetheless for showing how humans tend to wait until a problem has passed a critical threshold before trying to take remedial action.

I have been especially interested in the acidification of the oceans. Many global warming doubters believe that the oceans will balance out the atmospheric carbon equation. True enough, the oceans absorb about 30% of all the CO2 we pump out. Unfortunately, it does so by changing sea water into carbonic acid. That's not as horrible as it sounds; carbonic acid is what sometimes gives beer its sharp flavor. However, as it begins to happen in the ocean, it will have a dire effect on diatoms and other life forms at the base of the oceanic food web. These creatures form their skeletons out of calcium carbonate. As acid increases, it dissolves calcium carbonate. At what critical point will we realize that this has the potential to destroy all life in the ocean. Hyperbole you say? Chances are, we won't understand how serious the problem is until we hit that halfway point.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Thanks for the help guys. I'll look into the Sahara quote some more... it just may work. cop:

So you're saying that the ocean is going to taste like beer?????


YAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! GLOBAL WARMING RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm just kidding and don't mean it - I just a chance to make a smart alec remark.

You may want to check out White Death too. Introducing geneticly altered fish into the waterways of the earth without researching for many years the effects of these fish might be an interesting idea for your homework. w:

Funny you mention White Death... I'm five chapters away from finishing it, and I was thinking about either using the fish examples or the Sahara story. Might have to use the White Death story since I haven't read Sahara yet. cop:

Best non fiction help is wholesale farm fishing in the Oceans. Wal-Mart sells tons of fresh seafood and because of that whole sections of the oceans including the coasts of Ecuador and Peru are devoid of fish. Look into it and you may learn a lot.

I think it's great that the best book about oceanography has the title of a large sandy land desert. :lol:

That's probably why a large focus of the movie turned to the ironclad, because people wouldn't "get" a movie called "Sahara" that focused on saving the oceans. (Not that they really "got" the idea of an ironclad being lost in the desert either, but...)

Fish farming is the way of the future. With all of the pullution we put into our waters there is no other choice. The 'SUPER FISH' idea is not what I would see for our future..

I tend to agree that fish farming must replace the wild fish harvest, but the practice is not without its drawbacks. For one thing, the biomagnification of toxins seems to be higher in farmed fish, possibly because of homogenous feed sources. Also, while fish farming doesn't directly impact the environment in a negative way, it won't make a bit of difference if we don't address some of the other looming crises on the horizon, such as coral bleaching and--my own pet project--ocean acidification.
Fish farming is kind of like bio-diesel--it's a way to deal with one of the symptoms (i.e. seafood demand) but ignores the bigger problem, namely that we're killing the ocean.

you are right Sean. Something must be done to stop the harm that is being done to our oceans. Our planet cannot continue without this resource. It is a source of life and beauty. I don't think we will ever see the day when the counties of our world will work together to heal the damage that we have done to our Earth. It is so sad.