The Dark Frontier
Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
An awe-inspiring investigation into the hidden world of the deep sea—the most mysterious, unforgiving environment on Earth—whose secrets can radically revise our understanding of life itself and chart our planetary future.
“A brilliant scientist and storyteller, Jeffrey Marlow takes us on a page-turning descent into the deepest mysteries on the planet.”—Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)
The deep sea is our planet’s last frontier. For most of human history, it was a vast, unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. And despite how much we’ve learned, it remains largely unexplored.
In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and explorer Jeffrey Marlow offers a new perspective on the power and beauty of the deep sea, beginning with the nineteenth-century discovery that the ocean’s depths were teeming with life and shifting to more recent investigations of the kaleidoscopic ecology of hydrothermal vents, methane seeps, and whale falls. Marlow illuminates the ocean’s scientific marvels, including microbes that breathe metal and fish that withstand crushing pressures, as well as theories about how underwater habitats may have been the cradle of life on Earth. He reveals the deep sea’s microbial universes, worlds within worlds that have opened new possibilities of survival in extreme environments.
The Dark Frontier is an engaging narrative journey grounded in Marlow’s research and wide-ranging knowledge, together with insights from hundreds of experts, from deep-sea scientists to conservationists and UN diplomats. The book considers the twinned forces of exploration and exploitation, shining a light on deep-sea drilling and mining as well as the complexity of governing the high seas and their precious resources.
In this authoritative and accessible account of ocean exploration, Marlow captures the wonder and potential of the deep sea, teaching us lessons that help navigate the future—not just for the remarkable creatures that live there but for those of us on the surface as well.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The deep sea "may well be the largest, most diverse, most consequential habitat on Earth," writes marine microbiologist Marlow in his moving debut exploration. Still largely unexplored, the deep sea—the vast, cold zone below the ocean's surface where no sunlight reaches—is at a "precarious inflection point," he contends, as human activity threatens its biodiversity and other key features. Attempting to understand this immense habitat before it's forever changed, Marlow takes numerous research trips into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, including an expedition in the "world's most scientifically advanced submersible," Alvin, which brings him thousands of meters below the surface of the Caribbean Sea. He traces the history of deep-sea exploration, from the discovery in the mid-1800s that the ocean's depths were filled with life to more recent revelations, like hydrothermal vents (fissures in the seafloor that spew heated, mineral-rich water). Elsewhere, he explains how the deep sea impacts terrestrial life by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, and the threats posed by such exploitative activities as seabed mining and overfishing. Marlow's fascination with underwater environments is palpable throughout, as he studies microbes that can exist by metabolizing methane, and discovers hidden ecosystems of strange fish, crustaceans, and worms ("It was amazing to think how these bizarre bodies came to be, molded by the gradual yet uncompromising scalpel of evolution"). This is science writing at its finest.
