New 7th edition coverage includes plate tectonics, water and seawater, air-sea interaction, ocean circulation, waves and water dynamics, tides, beaches and shoreline processes, the marine habitat, and animals of the pelagic environment. Softcover.
this book isn't all about "fishies", as a matter of fact it doesn't approach living organisms until the later parts of the book.. this is actually a relief.. instead, the author focuses initially on the geology of planet Earth, fluid and air dynamics (considering the atmosphere as part of our ocean)...
after taking this class, i am able to read satellite maps and use the currents/temperature of the oceans as indicating things such as hypothermal vents, or tectonic motion.. i am VERY satisfied.
I read this just to learn a bit about oceanography, not as a text book for a college course. Unlike many text books, I found it quite readable and enjoyable. It is well written. It has lots of helpful photos, drawings, and diagrams. There is a helpful glossary of terms in the back along with several appendices with refreshers on scientific notation, the metric system, the periodic table, geological time, and the phylogenetic tree.
In my Oceanography class, my senior gave me a copy of this book. It's quite readable and enjoyable. The language used in this book also pretty light (even tho sometimes i still need to open my dictionary bcs English isn't my first language). And the visuals inside the book was also refreshing. I still use this book until now.
This is probably the best textbook I've ever used. Last summer session, I took an online, university-level Oceanography class and this was the main text. Although some concepts in oceanography are difficult to grasp (usually due to the abstract thinking required to comprehend them) this text made everything as easy as possible. There are so many different ways the information is presented--written text, videos, graphs, charts, infographics, real world examples, etc.--there's definitely something for every learning style. I constantly found myself making use of the text's search feature, as well; it was invaluable.
I've had other e-texts before, but this is the first one I've used that really puts the digital platform to use in a way that is effective and easy-to-understand. Indeed, this is the first time I've felt that the digital version of a textbook must be better than the physical.