Oceans - Tapa dura

The oceans are the single most important feature of our planet. They shape our climate, our culture, our future. Yet we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about Earth's watery depths.

What lies below the frozen Arctic ice-sheets? Or in the intriguing black holes under the Caribbean Sea? Drawing on the most exciting stories from the fields of sub-aquatic archaeology, geology, marine biology and anthropology, professional diver and explorer Paul Rose reveals an astonishing hidden world of lost cities, forgotten shipwrecks, underwater caves and submerged volcanoes. He also looks at life in the ocean habitat, from great white sharks to the myriad exotic, but rarely seen, creatures that thrive in the extreme conditions miles beneath the surface.

This book, like the landmark television series it accompanies, examines the possible consequences of upsetting this delicate balance and its impact on global warming. Beautifully illustrated with more than 150 colour photographs, Oceans: Exploring the Hidden Depths of the Underwater World unravels the mysteries of the deep and provides illuminating insights into this vast undersea domain.

The oceans and seas explored include the Mediterranean, the Sea of Cortez, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.

Paul Rose, the expedition leader and co-presenter of the BBC television series, Oceans, is a polar guide, professional diver, mountaineer, engineer and yacht skipper. He was the base commander of the British Antarctic Survey, and was awarded both the Queen's Polar Medal and the US Polar Medal. Paul ran the US Navy's diver training programme at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and trained emergency response dive teams, including the police, fire department and underwater recovery teams. He has presented several other television series, including Voyages of Discovery, Climate Change and Take One Museum.

Anne Laking has worked in science programming at the BBC for 20 years and has been an executive producer in science programming for eight years. Her factual and science programmes have won a number of awards including a BAFTA, several Royal Television Society awards and two Beijing Golden Dragon awards. Anne was the executive producer of the award-winning Horizon: The Mystery of the Persian Mummy and Alternative Medicine for BBC2, as well as the landmark BBC4 science series Time, Light Fantastic, and Visions. She is the executive producer of Oceans.