The Puget Sound is a complex fjord-estuary system in Washington State that is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Juan de Fuca Strait and surrounded by several large population centers. The watershed is enormous, covering nearly 43,000 square kilometers with thousands of rivers and streams. Geological forces, volcanos, Ice Ages, and changes in sea levels make the Sound a biologically dynamic and fascinating environment, as well as a productive ecosystem. Human activity has also influenced the Sound. Humans built several major cities, such as Seattle and Tacoma, have dramatically affected the Puget Sound. This book describes the natural history and evolution of Puget Sound over the last 100 million years through the present and into the future.

Key Features

• Summarizes a complex geological, geographical, and ecological history
• Reviews how the Puget Sound has changed and will likely change in the future
• Examines the different roles of various drivers of the Sound’s ecosystem function
• Includes the role of humans—both first people and modern populations.
• Explores Puget Sound as an example of general bay ecological and environmental issues

Gary C. Howard is science editor and writer. He spent over 20 years at the Gladstone Institutes of the University of California San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and at Harvard University. He has edited several books, including three books for CRC Press.

Matthew R. Kaser is a Senior Partner at Bell & Associates in San Francisco and has been a part-time lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at California State University East Bay. He was on the faculty of the Department of Pediatrics, UCSF, an NIH Fellow at Habor-UCLA Medical Center and held postdoctoral researcher positions at the University of California Irvine, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and at Oxford University.