As Townsend states in his preface, the goal of this new textbook is “to preserve the basic disciplinary elements and their order of presentation found in most oceanography texts, but to include how it all relates to life in the sea.” He succeeds very well in providing balanced coverage as he leads students on an exploration of the physical, chemical, and geological fundamentals, and follows through with biological processes and organisms.

Campbell, L. 2013. Review of Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Introduction to Marine Science, by David W. Townsend. Oceanography 26(2):186–187, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.26.

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