THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701060175
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RHETT B. WHITE
LENGTH: 69 lines
DEEP ATLANTIC
Life, Death and Exploration in the Abyss
RICHARD ELLIS
Alfred A. Knopf. 395 pp. $35.
The deep sea, the largest environment on earth, is also the least-known. Even people who live near the seashore know little about ocean waters just a few miles offshore. The depths of the sea represent the last frontier on earth.
Richard Ellis takes us to the sea floor in his latest book, Deep Atlantic: Life Death and Exploration in the Abyss.
Ellis, who previously authored books on whales, dolphins and sea monsters, intended to write a book about the Atlantic Ocean. He soon realized that covering such diverse subjects as oceanography, commercial fishing and the beaches of Cape Hatteras, N.C., was an impossible task. He narrowed the subject to the deep Atlantic, but still covered two major subjects - exploration and creatures of the deep.
According to Ellis, early ocean exploration with cables and grappling or collecting devices launched from shipdecks was awkward, often providing misleading information. Scientists frequently ignored evidence of ocean life thousands of feet below the surface, choosing instead to believe that life could not exist below 600 feet. Some expeditions in the 1800s focused on finding that ``hole to the center of the earth,'' rather than on finding whether marine life could survive at great depths.
It has only been during the past three decades that most of what we know about the deep ocean has been learned. There are formidable obstacles to ocean exploration. No habitat on earth equals the ocean's cold, black density for inhospitability.
Ellis pays tribute to M.F. Maury, Jacques Cousteau and others who pioneered ocean research. Maury, who published Physical Geography of the Sea in 1855, was the Cousteau of his day. He brought the largely unknown ocean world to North Americans and Europeans. His work made it possible to develop popular support for the landmark scientific expeditions of the late 19th century, such as those involving the ``Lightening,'' the ``Challenger'' and the ``Blake.'' Cousteau brought the ocean into America's living rooms in the 1960s, making it possible for the U.S. Congress to appropriate large sums for oceanic research.
Ellis acknowledges research contributions from other sources with the sagas of how the transoceanic telegraph cable was laid and of the efforts to locate and salvage items from the ``Titanic'' and ``Bismarck'' shipwrecks.
Part two of Deep Atlantic is the most captivating. Ellis takes us to the depths of the sea floor, where pressures can exceed one ton-per-square-inch and where water temperatures may hover at just above freezing.
In the deep Atlantic there are sponges, fans, pens, anemones, corals, mosses, lilies, starfish, brittle stars, urchins, cucumbers, squid, octopuses, crabs, spiders, acorn worms, eels and approximately 2000 known species of fishes.
More than 100 illustrations by the author detail the incredible biodiversity of the Atlantic's depths. A celebrated marine artist, Ellis drew original drawings in black ink on white illustration board. A negative photostat was then made, resulting in a white drawing on a black background. This provides contrast to the black of the deep sea where there is total absence of sunlight.
Even with our enthusiasm and technological advances, Ellis maintains the sea will remain largely unexplored. He notes much of the sea's unfathomable volume is deep, black and by its sheer magnitude, unknowable. MEMO: Rhett B. White is director of the North Carolina Aquarium Division
in Raleigh, N.C. He lives part-time in Kill Devil Hills.