Jood.

For most of life’s history the ocean was not one ocean but many, each sea with its own creatures.

Then the Siberian Traps erupted 252 million years ago, and the water grew too warm to hold the oxygen its animals needed. The dying was enormous, but when things settled the ocean was not empty. It was alike. The same few survivors everywhere, all over the globe.

Not every catastrophe does this. A meteor took three quarters of all life and every sea still kept its own character.

So when I rifle through the history of life, I find that it is not the size of the ruin. It takes warm water and mass death at once, in great intensity, worldwide.

I also put the same question to the ocean we have now. I ask: Which reefs are nearest to running out of breathable water? Which of the invasive species arriving on a coastline will stay, and what makes a species more likely to be invasive? And, ultimately, whether we will end up with many mosaics in the future, or one.

I also draw, in charcoal and digitally, and my personal magnum opus is in writing a high fantasy novel threaded with biology and geology. I draw inspiration in this novel from my own cultural folklore, and from geology, biology, and my own research.