Best oceans & seas books according to redditors

Last year I took an intro oceanography course, and Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science is the textbook we used. I greatly enjoyed it, the pictures are nice and colorful, and the text is easy to read. It covers all facets of the oceanography, including some marine biology. It's relatively cheap used on amazon, so I would give it a go!

As far as basic intro books go Surf Science was pretty good if elementary. Surfline occasionally has these mechanics features on why a world class spot is so good. They had a sweet one on J-Bay not too long ago. As far as going deeper into it though, the learning curve takes a sudden leap as it goes from basic physics to modeling and fluid dynamics, like this book I'm reading through right now. There does really seem to be a lack of middle ground for books. But if you have any specific questions I'll be glad to answer (I'm working towards a masters in the subject so I have some background in it). stoke451 took the tide one pretty well there.

The textbook I used for oceanography last year was Essentials of Oceanography. It has physical, chemical and ecological elements and is also a pretty easy read. Personally, I thought it was a pretty decent book.

Hey, Ocean Engineer here. I took a look at the topics and sample questions for the bowl..you've definitely got your work cut out for you!
Here's two books that I've used during my studies:

Introduction to Physical Oceanography by Knauss

Ocean Energy Conversion by McCormick

Both will give you a great overview of physical aspects of the ocean (currents, tides, wave mechanics, flow, seafloor, interactions with a variety of surfaces, etc) and the second will give you information about technology and renewable energy (definitely a hot topic). They are also both incredibly reasonably priced considering they are textbooks.

It's tough to point you to any one resource that would cover a variety of those topics, but a great resource all things ocean related is Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. On their website they have a section called Ocean Topics and covers just about every topic on the Bowl's list, with links to more references, news articles, and research papers.
http://www.whoi.edu/main/ocean-topics

Best of luck to your team, please come back and tell us how you do!

Looking for PDF of this book:

Essentials of Oceanography (12th Edition)

ISBN-13: 978-0134073545, ISBN-10: 0134073541
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134073541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_flU-Ab8HB5WZX

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I adore Field Geology Illustrated - it's a pretty long read, but covers a tiny bit of everything I've ever needed to know outside the classroom.

Field Geology Illustrated is great for field pictures with illustrations of phenomena.

Basic Methods of Structural Geology I've seen this book get some hate for having weird units and a few mistakes but it is a remarkably solid book for practice exercises. And it's illustrations are kind of the gold standard.