Oil versus fish is the basal reason for this book’s existence. By the time exploratory drilling began on Georges Bank in the summer of 1981, there already had been an unprecedented public uproar over the potential environmental impacts of petroleum exploration in an area known for centuries for its preeminent biological richness and diversity. Emotions ran high, international tempers flared, presidents and prime ministers parleyed. Public reaction ran the gamut from incredulous disbelief that we would consider fouling our own nest to smug satisfaction that we might finally shed our mideastern energy dependency. In the midst of the turmoil, and partly because of it, the United States and Canada declared overlapping jurisdictional claims over Georges Bank. The legal scrap that ensued was only recently settled by the International Court, which figuratively scratched a line in the sand across the top of the bank, dividing the turf but exacerbating the issues.

Brooks, D.A. 1988. Review of Georges Bank, edited by R.H. Backus. Oceanography 1(1):31–32, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1988.44.

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