Book excerpt: A continuing, comprehensive and timely survey of the state of knowledge of ocean science, this distinguished series provides an overview of research frontiers as ocean science progresses. Areas covered include physical, biological, and chemical oceanography, marine geology, and geophysics and the interactions of the oceans with the atmosphere, the solid earth, and ice. Because ocean science is evolving so rapidly, straining the boundaries of traditional sub-disciplines, interdisciplinary topics have a special place in this series--including those topics related to the application of ocean science, for example, to ocean technology, marine operations, and the resources of the sea. As a treatise on advances and new developments, each topical volume starts with fundamentals and covers recent progress, so as to provide a balanced account of how oceanography is evolving. Previous volumes (1-12) in the series are now available from Harvard University Press. In the manifold, multidisciplinary efforts of.