Word: sea
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...time, it defines and characterizes the earth--one flowing body of water, with different names and climates, and covering almost 75% of the planet. The oceans encompass 97% by volume of all the earth's living space. Nearly half the world's population lives within 60 miles of the sea. The thing is in our forgotten history and our chromosomes, which may explain why people stare at the ocean with such sweet, vacant yearnings. Stare long enough, and you can embrace the whole world with your eyes. Even then, you are taking in only the surface...
...book Sea Change and before legislators and others in power, she argues that the ocean gives us a 4 billion-year-old legacy--the living history of the world--and that we are blithely squandering our inheritance by way of pollution and overfishing. What is more: there is so much left to see in the oceans. The few existing manned submersibles can reach only half their depth. The benthic, or bottom-dwelling, plants and animals represent the least-known ecosystem on the planet. Earle feels personal responsibility for the ocean's future and safety. She takes fish personally. She once...
...delicate garden of tentacled plants that sway in unison, like backup singers. Pink, orange, rose, green, lavender. Plants with Einstein's hair, plants with Don King's and Phyllis Diller's--all kept graceful by the water. The garden is vertical as well as horizontal. On its floor sea stars crawl on their bellies like fat recruits in basic training. Above them swim the gulping bells of the jellies. In the intertidal zone limpets and other mollusks graze on algae in the rocks. Cancer crabs attack hermit crabs. An anemone divides to reproduce and becomes its own sibling...
Most beautiful and mysterious to me is the Vampyroteuthis infernalis, the vampire squid from hell. Its body is salmon colored, its eyes blue--no ordinary blue, but blue that defines the color, the first blue, the blue open eye of the sea. Once thought extinct, it can turn inside out, and hide in a cloak of itself. If one doubts the range of nature's imagination--or sense of humor--picture a Vampyroteuthis staring into a self-created darkness, 3,000 ft. below the surface, while nearer shore, an otter snacks...
...environmentalist in her cites the interdependency of sea and land. The redwoods in the region not only collect the moisture that comes to them as fog, but they also create a suitable habitat for other life. "Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss," she says. "If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you'll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment. A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city...