The Silent Landscape: In the Wake of HMS Challenger, 1872-1876

"The undertaking was nothing short of a roaring success. Challenger dredged up hundreds of samples from the seafloor and mapped enormous areas of undersea terrain. Most startling of all, though, was the revelation that the ocean was much more than a barren graveyard that mutely reflected Earth's past - it was not a silent landscape after all. Instead, these intrepid explorers found a gloriously complex ecosystem teeming with life, an ecological and geological treasure trove that could scarcely be imagined from a landlocked perspective."--BOOK JACKET.