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# 2016-11-22 - The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson |
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Rainbow in Yachats |
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Non-fiction book review written May 14, 2011 |
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To me the writing seemed similar to John Muir's writing. The preface |
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said that the author took the back seat, letting the subject take the |
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center of attention. That may be so, but the author's enthusiasm |
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shows. I think she viewed the mysterious as an opportunity, rather |
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than as a limitation. |
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The topic is literally large, so the book may as well be about the |
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history of the universe. It does touch on geology and the formation |
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of our planet and solar system. Early in the book, she wrote that |
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the earth was formed out of solar material, and it has barely cooled |
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since then. I remember the idea that the crust is a thin skin |
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floating on a molten interior, but I did not think that molten |
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interior was anywhere near star temperature. It gives me new respect |
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for the concept of geothermal energy. We still believe that the core |
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of the earth has a temperature similar to the surface of the sun. |
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Inner core @Wikipedia |
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One of my high school English teachers mentioned many phenomena that |
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are described in this book, and coincidentally gave us a reading list |
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that includes this book. I can remember my teacher describing the |
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Bay of Fundy and the forces that shape its tides. Reading the |
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example again, I wondered whether the name had to do with waveform |
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fundamentals and harmonics, but the name seems to be a coincidence. |
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The research is impressive. There were too many details to retain. |
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The most interesting detail to me is the history of our learning. |
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This book was written before geologists had consensus about plate |
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tectonics. I also thought it was neat that someone wrote about |
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"climate change" as far back as 1912. |
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"From this germ of an idea, Pettersson's fertile mind evolved a |
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theory of climatic variation, which he set forth in 1912 in an |
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extraordinarily interesting document called "Climatic Variations in |
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Historic and Prehistoric Time." (Svenska Hydrog.==Biol. Komm. |
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Skrifter, No. 5, 1912.) "Marshalling scientific, historic, and |
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literary evidence, he showed that there are alternating periods of |
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mild and severe climates which correspond to the long-period cycles |
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of the oceanic tides." |
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The afterword mentions Milankovitch, who also broke ground on this |
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subject. |
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Milankovitch cycles @Wikipedia |
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author: Carson, Rachel, 1907-1964 |
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detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Rachel_Carson |
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LOC: GC21 .C32 |
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tags: book,non-fiction,outdoor,science |
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title: The Sea Around Us |
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# Tags |
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book |
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non-fiction |
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outdoor |
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science |
