If there are any changes to your documents since you last saved, you will be prompted to save your changes for each document. To quit the Mariner Write application, choose Quit from the Write menu. To create a new document with default settings, choose New Empty File from the File menu.! To save the current document as the new default document, choose Save As Default File from the File menu. In this case, new documents use the default setting.' You can bypass this feature by checking the Apply To New Documents checkbox in the Preference dialog. Note: Other applications perform a similar function by use of a “stationery note” feature. This default document provides the default settings and content for new documents.! For detailed information about importing graphics, see the Importing Graphics section earlier in this chapter.'Ĭhoose Revert from the File menu to open the last saved copy of the current document.Īny changes since the document was last saved are lost.!Įach new Mariner Write document you create is actually a duplicate of a special Mariner Write document stored in the Mariner folder in the System’s Preferences Folder. The graphic must be re-inserted as a character. Note: Graphics existing as objects in Mariner Write documents are not exported. See the previous sections for detailed information about using the Save, Save As, or Save a Copy As commands.! I love this illustration by Gustave Dore from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” but there are no polar bears in Antarctica.To save ﬁles in formats other applications can read, choose a ﬁle format other than Mariner Write in the Use Format popup in the Save, Save As, or Save a Copy As dialogs.! Also, please see “Unarctica,” my Antarctic blog for children. Students can ask questions by using the “Comments” feature of the blog. My intention is to provide interesting and informative reading for teens and adults, and classroom opportunities and science facts for teachers. I expect to post to it occasionally during the run-up to the voyage and afterwards, and daily during the voyage, which begins on and ends on June 30, 2008. As every writer knows, immediacy makes everything more compelling. Did I want to be part of this adventure? Of course, I said YES.Īs I thought about what I would give back in return for this incredible opportunity, I realized that I could share my excitement and the things I would learn not only through the book I would write later, but also in the moment, while the adventure was still underway. Antarctica is such a place, and I had long wanted to go there - to see what I could see, to learn what I could learn, to feel the wisdom and fear that comes from understanding I am but a mote in God’s eye.

Raised in the desert wastelands of Nevada, I have always been drawn to empty, otherworldly spaces. We want to know for certain, because the answers will add to our understanding of global climate change.”

We suspect they’re drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide and sequestering particulate carbon deep in the sea. According to Ken Smith, an oceanographer and the expedition’s principal investigator, “We already know the new icebergs affect the water in complicated ways. How dense are the icebergs? Where are they going and how fast? How quickly are they melting? How much fresh water are they adding to the sea? How many different kinds of nutrients are they adding to the water, and in what quantities? How did nutrients get into the icebergs, and where did the nutrients come from? Are the nutrients the cause of the halos of marine life? What types of life forms inhabit the iceberg halos, and what are the populations? What life forms live under the icebergs, where no one has been able to look before?īut perhaps the most urgent question is this: are these remnants of the ice shelves helping to reduce carbon dioxide levels, and if so, how much. Thousands of questions remain unanswered. It is clear that the icebergs are adding nutrients to the water around them. Work done several years ago showed that large and small icebergs alike are surrounded by “halos” of abundant marine life that extend out several kilometers in all directions. It would be very cold, and very dark.īut the research they described sounded exciting and important. The first voyage would take place in the winter. Each voyage would last a month, and the month would be spent entirely at sea aboard an icebreaker. The expedition would make two voyages to the Weddell Sea to study icebergs that were once part of Antarctica’s enormous ice shelves, which have begun to break apart in recent years.

The conditions, they warned, might be challenging. They hoped I would agree to be that writer. They wanted a children’s book writer to come along with them, and write a book about the expedition. One day, out of the blue, I was approached by a group of scientists preparing a grant proposal for a marine biology expedition to Antarctica.

Mariner write.