The objective of this book is to review the physical and chemical characteristics of estuaries. The volume has been designed principally as a reference for scientists, but administers, managers, decision makers, and other professionals involved in some way with estuarine research can find value in the text.

Closed Sea weaves together a colorful history of whalers and pirates, Revolutionary patriots and loyalists, fishermen and loggers, iron masters and life saving crews, sportsmen and holiday makers. Filled with historical anecdote and keen observations of sea and shore, it is a compelling portrait of the Barnegat Bay region and its history. With a naturalist's eye and a sailor's experience, environmental historian Kent Mountford opens our eyes to the Shore's past, its shifting inlets, disappearing islands, dangerous tides and shoals. Moving inland, he documents the Pinelands environment and the industries it has supported over the centuries. Closed Sea tells the remarkable history of a fascinating place, a place of great beauty, danger and opportunity, a place that has cast its spell on generations of people. This book is published with support, in part, from the Ocean County Historical Society, the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program, and the Tuckerton Seaport.

This textbook covers the physical and chemical aspects of estuaries, the biology and ecology of key organisms, the flow of organic matter through estuaries, and human interactions, such as the environmental impact of fisheries on estuaries and the effects of global climate change on these important ecosystems. Each chapter will begin with basic concepts and then move on to describing applications and current practice. This new edition is being authored by a team of world experts from the estuarine science community.

Deposit feeders, animals that derive nutrition from organic matter in sedimentary deposits, are dominant among the inhabitants of muds and, therefore, of the benthos of much of the ocean. In this volume the critical research problems pertaining to deposit feeders are identified and promising approaches for dealing with those problems are proposed. Interdisciplinary approaches are of utmost importance in the study of deposit feeders and their sedimentary environment, merging fields as disparate as nutritional physiology and sediment geochemistry. Among the topics presented are advances in theories of foraging and digestion, and new experimental approaches to study the potential foods, feeding behavior and physiology of animals that ingest sediment.