Duxbury/Introduction to the World's Oceans, 6/e

Marcia K. McNutt

I was having so much fun reading the book, that I actually WANTED to read it cover to cover!

I have to admit to being very impressed with absolutely everything. First and foremost, the revised material is extremely up to date. Before launching into the text book, I made my own list of what I thought were some of the most exciting new advances in the ocean sciences that should stimulate student interest: algal blooms, acoustic tomography, iron fertilization, global warming, chemosynthetic communities, Milankovitch, molecular probes, picoplankton, zebra mussels, overfishing, OTEC, AUVs, ROVs, bathymetric prediction from satellite altimetry, etc. To my astonishment, they are all covered!

Illustrations are generously applied throughout the text, with a good balance of cartoons, real photographs, and actual data. The figures are appropriately chosen to illustrate the material at hand. Clearly a lot of effort was put into either finding or creating the right image, rather than just using whatever might be handy. Visually, the book is extremely attractive.

The text is a pleasure to read. The book is clearly designed for beginning university students and does not assume much background in math, physics, chemistry, biology, or geology. Nevertheless, some fairly sophisticated concepts (e.g., Coriolis force, buffering of seawater by CO2, etc.) are described in such a manner that all students should have a good qualitative grasp of the principle at hand.

At first, I was a little worried by the liberal use of web addresses. I was afraid that in the short time from paste up to print, some of those web links would no longer be active. However, I tried out nearly a dozen of them, and found them all active, all appropriate, and nice elaborations of material for the reader interested in greater depth and more detail.

The study questions should help students assess their mastery of the material in the chapters. They go beyond simple repetition of the text, usually requiring some level of thought and application of the concepts to realistic situations. The study problems, when provided, allow students to apply the material they learned in a more quantitative manner. I only wish that study problems had been included in all chapters, but certainly understand that it would have been impossible to do so without the introduction of more sophisticated mathematics.

In conclusion, I want to congratulate McGraw-Hill and the authors on a truly superb job in providing a very accessible, up-to-date, and comprehensive text book. A student exposed to this text book should not only learn about the oceans, but LOVE TO learn about the oceans!

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