A scientific adventure story that dramatizes how profoundly our oceans have changed over the past 150 years
In December 1872, HMS Challenger embarked on the first round-the-world oceanographic expedition. Its goal: to shine a light for the first time on the mysteries of the deep sea. For the next four years, Challenger's naturalists explored the oceans, encountering never-before-seen marvels of marine life. The expedition's achievements are the stuff of legend. It identified major ocean currents and defining features of the seafloor, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Mariana Trench. It measured worldwide sea temperatures and chemistry, creating baseline data for all ocean research since. And, most spectacularly of all, it collected nearly five thousand sea creatures and plants new to science. In The Wake of HMS Challenger, Gillen D'Arcy Wood looks afresh at this legendary scientific odyssey and shows why, 150 years later, its legacy looms larger than ever.
The Challenger's scientists had no way of knowing that the incredible undersea aquarium they were documenting was on the verge of catastrophic change. Off Portugal, they encountered a brilliant starfish now threatened with extinction by microplastics; in St. Thomas, teeming coral habitats that today have been decimated by ocean warming; and at remote Ascension Island, the breeding grounds of the now-endangered green turtle. Lyrical and elegiac, The Wake of HMS Challenger offers a stunning before-and-after picture of our global oceans. It is both a reminder of what we have lost since the Victorian age and an urgent call to preserve what remains of the diverse life and wild beauty of our planet's final frontier. Gillen D'Arcy Wood is the Robert W. Schaefer Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of the award-winning Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World and Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice (both Princeton). "The Wake of HMS Challenger contains multitudes. It's a tale of daring adventure, human drama, deep-sea exploration, and scientific revelation, set on a Victorian-era ship that sailed 70,000 nautical miles. So far, so excellent, but this story offers even more. Now, in a time of climate upheaval-as we seek to understand the ocean in all her multitudes-the Challenger expedition has left vital clues in its wake. Gillen D'Arcy Wood has written an important book that is also a whole lot of fun to read."-Susan Casey, New York Times bestselling author of The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
"This utterly absorbing book not only gives the history of the HMS Challenger expedition but also, in unflinching detail, tells the story of what has happened to our oceans since. This is a huge story, brilliantly told, a must-read for all who care about our planet."-Mensun Bound, bestselling author of Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance
"The Wake of HMS Challenger is a riveting story of exploration, adventure, danger, and discovery. Combining science, history, and narrative storytelling of the highest order, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the health of our oceans."-Buddy Levy, bestselling author of Realm of Ice and Sky and Empire of Ice and Stone
"I thought I was reasonably knowledgeable about the Challenger expedition-until I read The Wake of HMS Challenger. Written in silky prose, this wonderfully engaging book takes an entirely new approach to the momentous voyage. A gripping tale, it is a joy from start to finish."-Nicholas J. P. Owens, director of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) "A vivid portrait of the ocean during its age of innocence and what has followed." "An invigorating environmental history."---Hannah Pearson, Foreword Reviews "A first rate, lively historical account of the fêted journey of the HMS Challenger
