With The Abyssal Plain, Holloway and Talley have managed to transform the Cthulhu Mythos into something with a more modern flavor, drawing not just from the well of cosmic horror, but from technothrillers, survival horror, and splatterpunk, with just a dash of the lost sensibilities of the shudder pulps. A cup full of tentacles mixed with existential nihilism and sprinkled with liberal quantities of gore, this is Lovecraftian horror with a bloody bent that few others have dared to explore. --Peter Rawlik, author of Reanimators They called it the Event. The Event changed everything. The earthquakes came first, including the Big One, shattering the Pacific Rim and plunging the world into chaos. Then the seas came, the skies opened, and the never-ending rain began. But as bad as that was, there is something worse. The Rising has begun. A lone man who abandoned the world for his addictions searches a waterlogged Austin for something, anything to cling to. Little does he know that something else searches for him. In the Sonoran Desert, the downtrodden of the world search for a better life north of the border, only to see the desert become an ocean: an ocean that takes life and gives death. In the woods of Alabama, survivors escape to Fort Resistance, but soon discover that it isn't just the horrors of the deep places of the world that they need to fear; but rather a new and more deadly pestilence that has grown in their own ranks. In England, it's too late to fight, and all that's left is to survive. One man reaches for his own humanity, but what to do when humanity is an endangered species? And in the Pacific, He is rising. In The Abyssal Plain: The R'lyeh Cycle, authors William Holloway, Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, Brett J. Talley, and Rich Hawkins have created a timely and uniquely modern reimagining of the Cthulhu Mythos.

This volume examines the deep sea ecosystem from a variety of perspectives. The initial chapters examine the deep-sea floor, the deep pelagic environment and the more specialised chemosynthetic environments of hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. These environments are examined from the perspective of the relationship of deep-sea animals to their physico-chemical environment.Later chapters examine the biogeography of the main deep oceans (Atlantic, Pacific and Indian) with particular attention to the downward flux of surface-derived organic matter and how this drives the processes within the deep-sea ecosystem. The peripheral deep seas including the polar seas and the marginal deep seas (inter alia the Mediterranean, Red, Caribbean and Okhotsk seas) are explored in the same context. The final chapters examine the processes occurring in the deep sea and include an analysis of why the deep sea has high species diversity, how the fauna respond to organic input and how species have adapted reproductive activity in the deep sea. The volume concludes with an analysis of the anthropogenic impact on the deep sea.

Rex and Etter present the first synthesis of patterns and causes of biodiversity in organisms that dwell in the vast sediment ecosystem of ocean floor. They offer a new understanding of marine biodiversity that will be of general interest to ecologists and is crucial to responsible exploitation of natural resources at the deep-sea floor.

This book on the current state of knowledge of submarine geomorphology aims to achieve the goals of the Submarine Geomorphology working group, set up in 2013, by establishing submarine geomorphology as a field of research, disseminating its concepts and techniques among earth scientists and professionals, and encouraging students to develop their skills and knowledge in this field. Editors have invited 30 experts from around the world to contribute chapters to this book, which is divided into 4 sections – (i) Introduction & history, (ii) Data & methods, (ii) Submarine landforms & processes and (iv) Conclusions & future directions. Each chapter provides a review of a topic, establishes the state-of-the-art, identifies the key research questions that need to be addressed, and delineates a strategy on how to achieve this. Submarine geomorphology is a priority for many research institutions, government authorities and industries globally. The book is useful for undergraduate and graduate students, and professionals with limited training in this field.

Contourites are sediments deposited or substantially reworked by bottom currents. The study of contourites is crucial for several fields of fundamental and applied research: paleoclimatology and paleo-oceanography, since these fairly continuous and relatively high-resolution sediments hold the key for priceless information on the variability in circulation patter, current velocity, oceanographic history and basin interconnectivity; hydrocarbon exploration, since accumulation of source rocks may be favored by weak bottom currents, whereas "clean" deep-sea sands may be formed by robust flows; and slope stability, since low-permeability fine-grained contourites facilitate the formation of overpressurized gliding planes when fresh contourites with a high pore-water content becomes rapidly loaded, or when their rigid biosiliceous microfabric collapses due to diagenetic conditions. Despite its significance, this group of sediments is poorly known by the majority of non-specialists. Notwithstanding the growing interest and the intensified research in contourites, a textbook that might also serve as a reference book on contourites was missing until now. This book addresses all aspects of the knowledge in the field of contourites and provides an authoritative and comprehensive coverage of the subject. It also can serve as a standard reference work for non-specialists, and in particular postgraduate students, university teachers and lecturers, researchers and professionals who are seeking an authoritative source of information about contourites. Reviews both theoretical topics and case histories Provides practical advice on multidisciplinary research techniques Provides also nonspecialist users with an intuitively-accessible, cross-referenced, and comprehensive coverage of the knowledge in the field Provides a helpful tool for research in the preparation of classroom lectures

This book presents the biodiversity of the Brazilian deep-sea and its many unique geological and biological features, as well as a review of its ecology, conservation, and future research needs. The deep-sea Brazilian margin has an incredible geological heterogeneity with numerous characteristic seafloor features, and latitudinal changes in marine productivity, oceanographic conditions and biological communities have resulted in very distinct biological assemblages at regional and bathymetric scales. It is a tremendously rich ecosystem in terms of living species, from which many well-known historical tales have originated, and with unique importance for the global climate and humanity. Nevertheless, vast areas of the Brazilian margin have been explored for fishing, oil and gas, and other commodities, likely impacting a variety of deep-sea habitats at scales and intensities yet undetermined. This book is intended for students, scholars, professionals and a wide audience interested in the deep-sea in general and, more specifically, in the South Atlantic deep-sea.