h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Sea - A1945325
Author: FloridaSailor - wereshark - U235886

Pcked this one up from the Flea Market and have added most of the comments from the old Peer Review thread and a few other details. Original is at

A1045892

Let me know what you think.

F S

Just had a quick look. It seems a big improvement on the original. Haven't got time to give it a good squiz at the moment.

In the stories, you could include the rhyme of the ancient mariner, A897924.

how about a bit about the dead sea

As a lover of all things H2O, I enjoyed this very much

I just wondered, when you mentioned deep sea exploration, if you happened to see the BBC programmes on Sunday 2nd November called "Abyss Live"? The BBC along with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), http://www.mbari.org/ (expert on site, George Matsumoto), transmitted live pictures from MBARI's Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) called Tiburon. Triburon was sent 2000ft down into the Monterey Bay Canyon and captured film of various Jelly Fish, Sleeper Sharks, Rat Fish, etc. MBARI has a program of deep sea research and find new species frequently, so I thought it would be an idea to mention this and include the link.

The BBCi link for Abyss Live is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/abysslive/ Definitely worth a look-see.

I hope you don't mind me putting my in? Great entry!

Prideth

The phrase "The Seven Seas" is a general one used to mean all the waters of the world. It doesn't refer to any particular bodies of water and the explanation you give is a very artificial one. The phrase has been in use since long before all these oceans were discovered.

The seven in the phrase is a mystical number which is often used in mythology. There were seven planets in ancient times; God made the world in seven days; and sailing the seven seas was just another of these mythological uses of seven.

The rest of the entry is very good, though.

I have added some updates;

Bob, I didn't include your link even though it is a great copy of the poem as it is not an edited entry and the guidelines don't permit it. I did however include the poem in my list of stories. I also added a link to the 'Save the Albatross' intro.



Maz the inclusion of the dead sea was not an easy thing to do as it opens a Pandora's box of other, equally important bodies of waters. I added a couple of sections and put in subheaders so the section will be easier to follow.



Prideth, thanks I included your links. unfortunately I don't have access to the Beeb on this side of the pond. There is another entry about the ocean floor in progress so I don't want to step on her territory.



OK Gnonm, I took out the footnote.

I also added a section on winds, tides and currents. I hesitated to add it before because I didn't want to get too long, but the way this is progressing I thought it might be of interest.

F S

Hi FS

It's such a pity that you missed the programmes. They were spectacular !

Glad you thought the links were useful.

Prideth

I think of the Great Salt Lake as a sea, even though it's named a lake. The Dead Sea is really so small as to be a lake, even though it's named a sea, so IMO you could omit it. Same with the Aral Sea, which is really more a puddle than a lake nowadays. The Salton Sea is heading towards lakehood and extinction.

I don't think of the Great Lakes in the US of A as seas, simply because they are not salt water.

'removes salt'-> better scientifically would be to say, 'leaves the salts behind'.

No mention of the Black Sea? The Adriatic?

Tides are low on either side of what?

The term tidal range needs some definition.

'The sea meets the land in gentle slopes'->This is true only geologically speaking, since the earth is so huge in diameter a mere 100m cliff along the California coast is trivial, and over 10,000 years, the cliff will have no longer been there and been ground down into nothing by waves.

The sentence starting the Users section ('a large part') is an egregious run-on. After spotting it, I went back and found a goodly number already in the article, so a generous sprinkling of full-stops can be beneficial.

The article talks about some oceanic geography, but omits some significant ones, like:
The Marianas Trench, the Mid-ocean ridges, hot smokers (and their associated wildlife is interesting in and of itself as it's quite remarkable), island chains, methane clathrates, Surtsey & Loihi, different kinds of beaches, lagoons. If I just thought of these off the top of my head, chances are there are more.

Now that you've removed the footnote equating the seven seas to the oceans, can you change the number of oceans to five, please. The Atlantic Ocean is one ocean. The Pacific Ocean is another ocean. There's no need to split them up into two just so that the total can equal seven.

Isn't the Antarctic Ocean known as the Great Southern Ocean?




F/b

The Antarctic Ocean is "also" known as the Southern Ocean. Either name is acceptable.

I knew Gnomon would know

Somewhere, I have a bit of paper with some notes jotted down on this entry, but I've lost it. I'll get back to you as and when.


F/b

I have added some more updates;

>I think of the Great Salt Lake as a sea, even though it's named a lake. The Dead Sea is really so small as to be a lake, even though it's named a sea, so IMO you could omit it. Same with the Aral Sea, which is really more a puddle than a lake nowadays. The Salton Sea is heading towards lakehood and extinction.<

Added a note. The inclusion of the Dead Sea was by another researcher's request and may be of interest to others.

>I don't think of the Great Lakes in the US of A as seas, simply because they are not salt water.<

Added a subheader "Bodies of Water that are Not the Seas" to clarify your point. I want to keep them in as some of them balance the inclusion of the Dead Sea.

>'removes salt'-> better scientifically would be to say, 'leaves the salts behind'.<

Granted, much better phrasing

>No mention of the Black Sea? The Adriatic?<

OK added them, but I doubt we can ever mention everything with the name Sea.

>Tides are low on either side of what?
The term tidal range needs some definition.<

Reworked that section.

>'The sea meets the land in gentle slopes'->This is true only geologically speaking, since the earth is so huge in diameter a mere 100m cliff along the California coast is trivial, and over 10,000 years, the cliff will have no longer been there and been ground down into nothing by waves.<

True, that section was in the original entry and when I read it I was thinking more in terms of continental shelf and the tiny shoreline found at the base of most cliff faces. Modified slightly.

>The sentence starting the Users section ('a large part') is an egregious run-on. After spotting it, I went back and found a goodly number already in the article, so a generous sprinkling of full-stops can be beneficial.<

I changed a few dependent clauses to footnotes as they weren't required for the thought. I'll do another read through with this in mind later.

>The article talks about some oceanic geography, but omits some significant ones, like:
The Marianas Trench, the Mid-ocean ridges, hot smokers (and their associated wildlife is interesting in and of itself as it's quite remarkable), island chains, methane clathrates, Surtsey & Loihi, different kinds of beaches, lagoons. If I just thought of these off the top of my head, chances are there are more.<

I left most of that out as there is another entry in Peer Review "Oceans the Sea Floor" A1919748 I didn't want to step on Alison's territory. I added a brief section to mention types of islands, but I don't want to get too bogged down. After all they aren't "the sea"

>Now that you've removed the footnote equating the seven seas to the oceans, can you change the number of oceans to five, please. The Atlantic Ocean is one ocean. The Pacific Ocean is another ocean. There's no need to split them up into two just so that the total can equal seven.<
I'll meet you halfway. I have always considered N&S different oceans, added my argument to the entry.



>The Antarctic Ocean is "also" known as the Southern Ocean. Either name is acceptable.<
"The World Factbook" an online-line resource of the US CIA says;
"A decision by the International Hydrographic Organization in the spring of 2000 delimited a fifth world ocean - the Southern Ocean..."

So I changed the name and added a "formerly know as " footnote.


>Elbot Propellownose polishing his nose
"How about us? We birds live on the sea for the most of our lives. We cross the seas more times than any whale can do."<

Added a small bit about seabirds, but they really deserve their own entry.


F S

Nice article, I have a couple of spelling/typo nits though:

Other pats of the Seas

pats = parts

Of the thousands of gulfs, bays, straights

straights = straits

There are a few bodies of water who's

who's = whose

Not sure whether I'm supposed to make this sort of comment, or whether this is the right place, but I'm new to this so

Excellent as ever, FS.

Sea-Life could really do with a seal-mention
Stories at the end, IMHO, cannot be complete without a nod to Melville and Moby Dick.

ZarquontheUnruly, you are doing the right thing. The Peer Review section is now a collective space for all kinds of editing, not just fact and rule checking and style suggestions (which is what it used to be for). The introduction doesn't really specify this because the instructions for Peer Review have changed just a couple of months ago, during Petunia. It takes a while for Help Pages to change.

Welcome to H2G2!

I just looked the article over, and except for the two comments above mine, it is looking pretty good. I didn't spot anything they didn't see. (off to go pester the Sea Floor researcher)

Florida Sailor, it's a good entry, but it needs a lot of tidying up. The writing seems a bit like a list of things about the sea in places, rather than a well-written description.

Read the entry out loud to yourself and see does it sound good. There are places where it sounds repetitive, others where it sounds silly.


Your explanation of the Coriolis effect is completely wrong. The circular currents are caused because the Earth spins faster in latitudes close to the equator than in latitudes further from the equator, causing circular currents of air to form.

There are many places in the entry where you join two sentences together with a comma. This is bad practice. Read each part on its own and see can it stand as a separate sentence.

Penguins nest as far north as the Galapagos Islands, not just in the Southern Ocean.

The section 'Islands in the Seas' explains about reefs in the first paragraph, then introduces them in the second paragraph.

A few typos:

Other pats of the Seas --> Other parts of the Seas
the be a sea --> to be a sea
Baffin's Bay --> Baffin Bay
Canadian Maritime Providences --> Canadian maritime provinces
straight --> strait (in lots of places)
who's --> whose
an any significant --> in any significant
center --> centre
allow them so swim --> allow them to swim
county's --> country's
Mitchner's --> Michener's

Seems to have gone quiet. Not surprising really, is it?

Gnomon - maybe you'd like to reconcile what you said in Post #6 with your line in Post #19. I certainly can't.

This is a good Entry from an interesting and well-motivated writer - one who's conspicuously better than the general standard. Hootoo needs people like FS, and such people deserve need the Community's encouragement, not high-handed put-downs.

Pin