Ocean : From the Shore to the Abyss

A colourful visual journey from the shoreline to the ocean’s depths to celebrate the sheer diversity of life beneath the waves.

Three quarters of the ocean has never been seen by humans. Drawing on the recent success of Trees, this companion book explores our oceans, taking readers on a deep dive through the different depth zones – from the shoreline and surface, via the sunlight zone, the twilight and midnight zones and into the great abyss – to chart the richness and diversity of life found in our seas.

Each chapter, centred on a different depth zone, begins with a comprehensive introduction, before exploring 15–25 visual themes, from the smallest living things to the largest and the familiar to the little-known. A final chapter on the oceans and us reveals the visual history of human interaction with the deep blue, from discovery and mapping to current issues of the environment and preservation.

Stunning photographic content – from microscopic images of tiny individual critters to corals of every hue and the abstract patterns of fish scales – is shown along with a wide range of stunning archival illustrations and specially commissioned infographics that convey complex data in a simple and elegant way.

With frequent news stories about the threat to marine life posed by climate change and human behaviours, the oceans are an important subject, and the preservation of biodiversity is crucial for the future of our planet. This book draws attention to the importance of life in our oceans to provide a positive message about the need to preserve it.

Dr Asha de Vos is an internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan marine biologist, ocean educator and pioneer of blue whale research in the Northern Indian Ocean. She founded Oceanswell, Sri Lanka’s first non-profit marine conservation organization, and her work has been featured by the BBC, TED and National Geographic. She was on the BBC 100 Women 2018 list of most inspiring and influential women worldwide, and has received numerous awards, including the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. She joined the UN Secretary-General’s Scientific Advisory Board in 2024. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosophy professor at the University of Sydney. He has written six books, including the best-selling Other Minds, which explores consciousness and intelligence in the animal kingdom and the octopus in particular. Anthony J. Martin is a palaeontologist and geologist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He is Professor of Pedagogy at Emory University. Rebecca Helm is a marine biologist and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Georgetown University. Helen Scales is a marine biologist, author and broadcaster. She has written several books, including the Guardian bestseller Spirals in Time. Andrew Thaler is a deep-sea ecologist and founder of Blackbeard Biologic.