This text is designed to meet the needs of 21st century oceanography students and instructors. It can be used in a traditional, content-rich, format or applied to active and inquiry-based exploration of fundamental questions and current topics. Throughout the text, we emphasize the concept of inquiry as a means for helping students to become ocean literate. This approach helps students to understand that science is a cumulative and tentative process, subject to careful scrutiny by peers, and subject to new evidence and information that may overturn currently held ideas. The presentation of oceanographic knowledge in this way illustrates the concept of oceanography as an ongoing inquiry into the nature of the world ocean.

• Each chapter begins with Questions to Consider, a set of questions that may be used as an introduction to a topic, or a starting point for inquiry-based studies. These questions are intended to stimulate curiosity and promote thinking like an oceanographer.
  
  
• Chapter outlines provide a convenient guide to the topics covered in the chapter.
  
  
• Historical content and environmental issues are woven throughout the text in the context of chapter-specific subject matter.
  
  
• More than 400 full-color photographs, maps, and illustrations have been carefully selected and designed to complement and reinforce the text.
  
  
• Spotlight boxed readings highlight cutting-edge oceanographic research and technology through discussions of ocean-related environmental and societal issues, as well as controversies and areas of research where oceanographers disagree. These boxes provide added interest and demonstrate the fact that science is a works-in-progress.
  
  
• You Might Wonder offers general interest questions and answers that provide interesting tidbits, strange and amazing facts, common misconceptions, and miscellaneous topics of interest to students.
  
  
• Key Concepts outlines the main points of the chapter in bulleted format for quick review.
  
  
• Terms to Remember lists the most important vocabulary words from the chapter along with page numbers for further review.
  
  
• Each chapter ends with Critical Thinking questions which are designed to help students assess their understanding of chapter material. These questions also provide an excellent starting point for deeper explorations of a topic in classroom or online discussions.
  
  
• Exploration Activities are inquiry-based activities that can be used to supplement or substitute for a traditional course of lecture and laboratory studies.
  
  
• A fold-out map at the end of the book provides a quick reference to the oceans, seas, bays, gulfs, straights, channels, and waters that form the world ocean.