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Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Action & Adventure Newsletter!
Each day is a blank page, an adventure to be written, action and re-action ~ be pro-active. Writing itself is action ~ creating an adventure for your readers to embrace in prose or verse. I'm back again in search of adventure and hope you will share with me this exploration and maybe create one of your own in prose or verse .
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Today, we explore an adventure where you explore the highest mountains, deepest valleys of our planet ~ in a pressurized vessel that can be crushed in minutes from a scratch against an unseen reef that will create a spreading wound to allow uncounted tons of seawater to first invade, then crush the relatively fragile hull. Or what of the forgotten pot pie dropped in a corner of the galley allowing oxygen to give life to a science experiment (you know, like the mystery leftovers in back of the fridge behind the ...), no less corrosive against a metal seam than the torpedo or missile fired from another vessel to puncture the relatively thin metal hull.
Beneath the world's oceans there are mountains to parallel (or surpass) some of the highest peaks above-ground, active volcanoes, vast plateaus and almost bottomless trenches. The deepest ocean trenches could easily swallow up the tallest mountains on land.
Around most continents are shallow seas that cover gently sloping areas called continental shelves. These reach depths of about 650 feet (200 m). The continental shelves end at the steeper continental slopes, which lead down to the deepest parts of the ocean.
It's beyond this continental slope that submarines explore vast worlds unparalleled above-ground. The oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface - yes, a lot of adventures to be met. The abyss just beyond the slope contains plains, long mountains ranges called ocean ridges, isolated mountains called seamounts, and ocean trenches which are the deepest parts of the oceans. In the centers of some ocean ridges are long rift valleys, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common. Some volcanoes that rise from the ridges appear above the surface as islands.
Other mountain ranges are made up of extinct volcanoes. Some seamounts, called guyots, are extinct volcanoes with flat tops. Scientists think that these underwater mountains were once islands but their tops were worn away by waves. The diagram below shows the main features found on the ocean floor.
Back in the 19th Century, French novelist Jules Verne brought submarines to full public consciousness with "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Verne's research was impeccable; he even computed the compressibility of seawater to arrive at valid postulates for his submarine's adventures.
Though it was Jules Verne who brought the idea of submarine adventures to the public eye, the first published diagram and physical description of a submarine was penned three centuries earlier, when William Bourne, an English innkeeper offered his description of why a ship floats. Having described the physics of displacing weight in water, he postulated that if the volume of a vessel could be made alternately heavier and lighter, with airtight joints and a mechanism to allow the volume to be released when the vessel wanted to rise, then a viable ship could be made to travel and carry adventurers along the ocean floor. Over the ensuing centuries, several designers developed sub-marine vessels, which culminated in 1776, when an actual attack was made on an enemy warship. The "Turtle," an undersea American vessel operated by a foot pedal attempted an attack on a British ship. It missed, but did manage to surface and the crew effect escape from harm. And the military potential of submarine vessels was initiated, to permutate over the coming centuries as "U-Boats" and later self-sustaining nuclear-powered battle and rescue subs.
Verne did his research - yes, fellow writers, research to get facts straight, then postulate 'what if' to weave a story built on known or theorized factual foundations, tempered with imagination. His story still, centuries later, rings as maybe believable for a time to the adventurer's heart of children and adults. Much of his postulates have yet to be disproven, so the adventure continues. What is a submarine, other than a spaceship exploring the space beneath our continental shelf. "Space, the vast frontier," I think 'Captain Kirk' would agree can also be "Ocean, the vast frontier."
The confined space; a microcosm of society; communities, relationships, agendas abound. The crew has to work as a team to stay alive, yet one cog, one seam, one piston firing out of sequence, can spell not only failure of the mission but disaster for the rest.
Submarines have come a long way from the foot-pedal controlled "Turtle" of 1776 (so named because of its shape). Nuclear fuel now powers subs, and they can reach depths unknown to even exist a few centuries ago. But the challenge, the call to adventure, remains, and explorers and soldiers and warriors, and writers will continue the exploration, taking it to depths yet to envision.
The adventure brought to public light by the incomparable Jules Verne was picked up the past century by Edward Beach in "Run Silent, Run Deep," and but a couple decades later by Tom Clancy in "Hunt for Red October." The new millenium brings us, among a few others, Joe Buff, with "Seas of Crisis," and, perhaps, you
If you'd like to explore in more depth the science, I've a splendid factual resource to share, with a vivid timeline of submarines which includes several schematics and diagrams that might ignite your muse creative to pen a submarine adventure, the "Navy Times Book of Submarines" by Captain Brayton Harris USN (Retired). And, of course, join some of our writers here on the adventures they've penned in verse and prose.
Until we next meet,
Write On!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Some of our members with their vision in prose of verse of submarine adventures, both fictional and real (a tribute) ~ I hope you enjoy each journey and let them know with a comment or review
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Thank you for sharing this exploration with me. I'll be back in a couple of weeks with another journey. I'd like to know who your favorite adventure writer is ~ who you like to read because they take you out of the world mundane.
I'd also like to know if you have a favorite seafaring story or verse to share ~ send along the bitem link and you may see it afloat on our next journey.
Until we next meet, may your 'voyage' be a creative adventure flowing smooth from muse creative to pen or keyboard.
Write On!
Kate
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Action/Adventure: March 03, 2010 Issue [#3567]
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