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Fundamentals of Oceanography
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Student Edition
Instructor Edition
Fundamentals of Oceanography, 5/e

Keith A. Sverdrup, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Alyn C. Duxbury, University of Washington
Alison B. Duxbury, Seattle Community College

ISBN: 0072826789
Copyright year: 2006

Book Preface



Preface

Fundamentals of Oceanography is intended for professors and students who need a more basic oceanography text to better serve less intensive college oceanography courses, courses tailored for nonscience majors interested in learning more about the fascinating, and often mysterious, marine world that covers 71% of Earth’s surface and yet is more poorly mapped than the surface of the Moon. This fifth edition is an extensive revision in response to the suggestions and ideas of instructors as well as advances in the ocean sciences. Our goal in this edition is to provide students with up-to-date information, and to make each chapter as clear and readable as possible without sacrificing scientific accuracy. This fifth edition continues to emphasize principles, processes, and properties of the oceans.

Because oceanography embraces immense amounts of geological, physical, chemical, biological, and engineering information related to the marine environment, and because of the interdependency among these subject areas, the choice of topics to be included in a fundamentals text presents a complex challenge. We have endeavored to choose those topics that best illustrate basic processes and at the same time answer students’ questions about the oceans while encouraging their interest. We invite instructors to change the sequence of material to best fit their own presentations and to elaborate on subjects as desired.

Eleven Items of Interest are included in this edition to cover issues that are not addressed directly in the text. In chapter 2 new sections have been added discussing the origin of the oceans and evidence for extraterrestrial oceans in our solar system. The discussion of plate tectonics and plate boundaries in chapter 3 has been extensively revised, and a number of new figures have been added. In chapter 5 the section on carbon dioxide as a buffer has been rewritten and expanded. The discussion of El Niño-Southern Oscillation in chapter 6 has been completely revised, and new figures have been added to further illustrate it. Chapter 7 updates information about the National Energy Laboratory in Hawaii and The Great Sneaker Spill. Waves and Tides (chapter 8) has been reviewed and revised with special emphasis placed on wave sorting, tidal forces, and energy from tidal currents. Environmental issues in chapter 9 have also been updated. All primary production values in chapter 10 are new, and new information on ice worms and the Lost City vent field has been included. Chapter 11 has been extensively rewritten: information on bacteria and red tides has been updated, and a section on viruses has been added; also all fisheries data have been amended from the last available FAO reports. Chapter 12 contains new information on tropical coral reefs and deep water coral reefs; benthic harvests are extracted from the latest available FAO data. Short essays on the responsibilities of a chief scientist and ship’s Captain in planning and executing a successful oceanographic expedition have been included in the middle of the text (following chapter six).

Fundamentals of Oceanography continues to present students with numerous aids to facilitate their study of oceanography. Each chapter opens with learning objectives, and review questions are presented as self-checks for the student at the end of each section. Throughout this text, information is presented in table form to help the student organize, summarize, and compare. Chapters end with a concise summary to aid in review, a list of key terms, critical thinking questions to encourage reflection about chapter topics, suggested readings to explore subjects in more detail, and Internet references related to topics of discusssion. Internet reference symbols have also been added to figure captions in the text where appropriate. Three appendices are included: (1) methods of deriving latitude and longitude, (2) taxonomic classifications of plankton, nekton, and benthos, and (3) scientific notation and units. All quantities in the text are given in both metric and traditional units.

Instructor Supplements

McGraw-Hill offers a variety of supplements to assist instructors with both preparation and classroom presentation. The Digital Content Manager CD-ROM set is a multimedia collection that offers a wide selection of photos, figures, and tables from the text, as well as additional photos, animations, and 34 videos from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Digital Content Manager CD allows instructors to utilize these assets in multiple formats to create customized classroom presentations, dynamic course website content, or attractive printed support materials. The digital resources on this cross-platform 2 CD-ROM set are grouped within easy-to-use folders and organized by chapter. The Digital Content Manager CD set is a shared tool with Sverdrup/Duxbury/Duxbury: An Introduction to the World’s Oceans, 8th edition, and the correlation guide to this Fundamentals of Oceanography, 5th edition text can be found within the Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/sverdrup5. The Scripps video segments included on the Digital Content Manager CD are also available to instructors on videocassette.

A text-specific Online Learning Center, which can be found at www.mhhe.com/sverdrup5, provides resources for both students and instructors. The password-protected Online Learning Center contains the Instructor’s Manual, which includes answers to the Study Questions and Study Problems from the text, and PowerPoint Lecture Outlines for each chapter.

The Instructor’s Testing and Resource CD is a cross-platform tool that contains questions specific to each chapter to help instructors generate tests, and also contains an Instructor’s Manual which includes the Answers to Critical Thinking Questions from the text, as well as Internet Exercises for each chapter. A set of overhead transparencies provides 100 figures from the text in full color. These ancillaries are available to instructors through their McGraw-Hill sales representative.

The Classroom Performance System (CPS) brings interactivity into the classroom. CPS is a student response system using wireless connectivity. It gives instructors the ability to create their own questions and receive immediate feedback from each student in the class. CPS is a great tool for engaging students in lecture and assessing student comprehension of discussion topics. For more information on CPS, contact your McGraw-Hill Sales Representative, or the McGraw-Hill Customer Service Department at 1-800-338-3987.

For instructors wishing to incorporate hands-on oceanography exercises into their course, McGraw-Hill offers an exceptional workbook entitled “Investigating the Ocean” by R. Leckie and R. Yuretich of University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Additional earth science supplements offered by McGraw-Hill appropriate for this course include the “Journey Through Geology” CD-ROM by the Smithsonian Institution and a geoscience videotape library. Contact your McGraw-Hill sales representative for details on these products.

Student Supplements

The Internet makes oceanographic information and data available to researchers and it also provides images and information in many forms to instructors and students. Public agencies and museums, universities and research laboratories, satellites and oceanographic projects, interest groups and individuals all over the planet provide information that can be publicly accessed. The text-specific Online Learning Center (OLC) website, which can be found at www.mhhe.com/sverdrup5, provides chapter-sorted links to many websites that contain information pertinent to each chapter’s content. In addition, web links are provided within the OLC for further information on many figures and boxed readings within each chapter. Wherever you see the web link icon in your textbook, you will find associated web links for the indicated figure or boxed reading on the OLC. The OLC also hosts a complete Student Study Guide, chapter quizzing, interactive key term flashcards, animations, and Internet exercises to help with chapter study.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge that this book is a product of many experiences in the field, at sea, and in the classroom. We extend our thanks to many friends and colleagues who have graciously answered our questions, helped us with current information, and provided access to their photo files. We particularly thank:

Marcia McNutt
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Ian Young
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

We also wish to extend a special thanks to the instructors who reviewed the fourth edition of this text and to those who contributed to the development of this fifth edition.

William J. Brennan
State University of New York–Geneseo

David Bush
University of West Georgia

Abraham Lerman
Northwestern University

Richard Mauger
East Carolina University

Leslie A. Melim
Western Illinois University

Anthony Russo
Leeward College, University of Hawaii

Robert Stern
University of Texas–Dallas

Finally, we express our sincere gratitude to McGraw-Hill and the outstanding staff members working with us to bring you this textbook.

To obtain an instructor login for this Online Learning Center, ask your local sales representative. If you're an instructor thinking about adopting this textbook, request a free copy for review.