Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution [Hardcover]

David M. Lawrence (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David M. Lawrence is a freelance journalist.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"The researcher's life, as I and many others have lived it, is usually characterized by long periods of repetitive, mind-numbing drudgery broken (we hope) by brief explosions of revolutionary insight and frenetic activity. It is similar to the life of a soldier at war, and-at times-can be just as fatal to the participants. . . . I believe that it is as important to remember the day-to-day human experience as it is to remember ideas, data, and debate. Knowing about the drudgery and danger adds to, rather than detracts from, the history of science. Thus, I have striven to re-create what it is like to be on or under the ocean surface, combating cantankerous equipment or furious weather in the hope of extracting a few precious observations from the deep. I have tried to reveal how some researchers struggled for years inside small labs to digest the increasing flood of information about Neptune's realm, and how others harvested the tide to revolutionize our understanding of the earth's history."--from Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813530288
• ISBN-13: 978-0813530284
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Geology > Geomorphology
  • #98 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Oceans & Seas > Oceanography

More About the Author

I am a bit difficult to describe. I am a journalist, author of two books (Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution, published by Rutgers University Press in 2002; and Huntington's Disease, published by Chelsea House in 2009), and scientist. My education is diverse, ranging from biology, ecology, and geography to journalism. I have taught biology, geography, and related subjects at several colleges in the Richmond, Va., area; now I am a Ph.D. student in the Media, Art, & Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

My journalistic specialties are a rather odd combination of science and sports writing. In addition to my book, my writing has appeared in two anthologies The Science of Dune: An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science Behind Frank Herbert's Fictional Universe and The Science of Michael Crichton: An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science behind the Fictional Worlds of Michael Crichton (both published by BenBella Books in 2008), and the magazines Geotimes (now Earth), The Lancet, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Mercator's World (sadly, no longer with us), and Vegetarian Times.

I have written for encyclopedias and reference works such as The History of Cartography. Volume 6: Cartography in the Twentieth Century, the World History Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of the Developing World, the Encyclopedia of Genetics, the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Magill's Encyclopedia of Science: Plant Life, Magill's Medical Guide, and the World History Encyclopedia.

Having grown up in and with the newspaper business, I have spent much of the past three decades working for newspapers such as The (Charlottesville, Va.) Daily Progress, The (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press, the Miami Herald, the (Parsippany, N.J.) Daily Record, the (Petersburg, Va.) Progress-Index, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, The (Shreveport, La.) Times, The Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, and the (Norfolk, Va.) Virginian-Pilot.

Some of my most challenging writing work has been for the radio programs Our Ocean World and MicrobeWorld.

Recently, I accepted one of the most challenging writing assignments of my life--working as science writer/editor/photographer for the Sea Education Association's Plastics at SEA: North Atlantic Expedition 2010. We spent more than 30 days at sea, sailed more than 3,000 nautical miles: east from Bermuda, across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and back. During the expedition, I wrote and published more than 33,000 words and took more than 5,000 photos.

For several years I have worked to promote literacy and literature in the Richmond, Va., metropolitan area. I have served as a member of the board of directors of James River Writers, a non-profit organization that has organized the annual James River Writers Conference at the Library of Virginia. James River Writers is involved in other activities in which aspiring writers get to mix with professional writers and performers to learn the craft of writing, as well as to practice it (if they dare).

As a scientist, my interests began primarily in biogeography and forest ecology, with an emphasis on using tree-ring analysis to tackle questions regarding the distribution and environmental history of tree species. I have since added freshwater and marine ecology to my interests. Over the years I have worked as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency and the USDA Forest Service, and as a staff member of Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. My academic writing has appeared in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Tree-Ring Research, and the Virginia Journal of Science.

Personally, I'm more than a bit of a flake. My private interests are as diverse as my professional ones, including music (pretty much anything but elevator music), writing (of course, just don't ask me how far I've come with my screenplays or novel), photography, fishing (I've finally learned to fly fish), scuba diving, hiking, genealogy, and more other things than any sensible person could cram into one lifetime.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answers From The Abyss, April 2, 2002

By 

Bruce Crocker "agnostictrickster" (Whittier, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution (Hardcover)

When I teach plate tectonics to my high school students, I ask them to consider the difficulty of building a comprehensive theory of the surface of the Earth when you don't know what three quarters of that surface looks like. I also mention how amazing it is that Alfred Wegener got as far as he did with continental drift without the detailed knowledge of the sea-floor that led to the modern theory of plate tectonics. David Lawrence has done a supremely good job at telling the adventurous and exciting history of plate tectonics in his book Upheaval From The Abyss. This book has got it all: ships, submarines, sonar, scientific [and emotional] arguments, sea-floor spreading, subduction, explosives and so much more. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to go deeper into the history of plate tectonics than does the standard cardboard cutout version found in most textbooks, and especially for those interested laypeople not ready to dive into Naomi Oreskes' excellent, but highly detailed The Rejection Of Continental Drift. I really enjoyed Upheaval From The Abyss and feel that others will, too.