Here is the strange story of the seas - how they were born, how life emerged from them, and the marine world within them. Rachel Carson's writing teems with images - the newly-formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; volcanic action throwing up huge masses on the ocean floor to create immense mountains and desolate canyons; giant squid battling sperm-whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface. A new chapter by Jeffrey Levinton, brings the science of ''The Sea Around Us'' up to date. Levinton incorporates the most recent thinking on continental drift, coral reefs, the spread of the ocean floor, the deterioration of the oceans, mass extinction of sea life, and many other topics. First published in 1951, this work won the National Book Award.