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About Ron S. Nolan

Metamorphosis Chronicles explores the social and environmental
impacts of AI evolution, competition for limited resources,
global warming and enhanced human longevity.

A Sci-Fi Series by Ron S. Nolan

... and a new series of non-fiction books that offers a rich
collection of photographs and graphics
to explore the science and beauty of nature.

Met Chron ^TM Met^--Chron ^TM
Metamorphosis Chronicles ^TM
Planetropolis Publishing ^TM
are trademarks owned by
Ron S. Nolan.

CONTACT

Ron S. Nolan, Ph.D.
222 Santa Cruz Avenue, No. 11
Aptos, CA 95003
Phone (831) 688-3158
E-Mail nolan@planetropolis.com
Text (669) 232-2497

Book 2 in the
EXPLORING the SCIENCE
and BEAUTY of NATURE
Series

Available at

and

Global Chemical Cycles

Plants and animals require specific chemical compounds for cellular metabolism, growth and reproduction. These chemicals are called nutrients on a local scale and biogeochemicals on a global scale. Nutrients are transferred along the food chain when herbivores feed upon plants and carnivores feed upon animals.

— The Evidence for Rapid Climate Change is Compelling —

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Twenty five years in development, this book lays down the foundation of ecosystem science that is key to understanding the potential catastrophic impacts of major climate change. With over 300 original photos and over 100 graphics, the book takes the reader on Journeys to the Marshall Islands, the French Frigate Shoals, and Sanibel Island where the fundamentals of ecosystems are presented and illustrated.

Patterns of Energy Flow in Ecosystems

Energy enters the ecosystem in the form of photons and electromagnetic radiation that is received from the sun. This energy is transformed by plants through photosynthesis into high energy compounds. The compounds are transferred through the food chain by herbivores feeding upon plants and carnivores feeding upon herbivores and other carnivores. Ultimately all of the solar energy input into an ecosystem will be converted into heat energy and exported out of the ecosystem.

Salmon Restoration

Measures to restore salmon populations continue to be proposed—including breaching dams on the Lower Snake River.

Description

My Life in Photographs

This book features my career as a marine biologist, entrepreneur and photographer and begins with stories about my days spent underwater as a 'fish counter.'

As a boy born in a one room farm house lacking plumbing and electricity on a farm in Western Kansas, I was ecstatic to be one of the few out of many applicants accepted for doctoral degree studies at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and to have the great fortune to acquire the financial and academic support that allowed me to conduct underwater studies of the fish populations inhabiting the tropical lagoon of a remote coral reef atoll in Micronesia and the Hawaiian Islands.

The highlights of several of my journeys are captured in a collection of photos that feature the plant and animal life of the Hawaiian and Marshall Islands as well as rescuing a giant whale shark beached in the Phoenix Islands and floating on a catamaran on a calm night with John Denver playing his guitar and singing the songs that he loved the most.

Tributes are are also made to the Scripps faculty who went out of their way to guide me through many challenges that I faced as a grad student and person. I especially feel gratitude to Richard Rosenblatt, John Isaacs, Carl Hubbs, and Paul Dayton who were the cornerstones to my meeting the high standards of a graduate of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

The book also reveals highlights of the underwater research that I conducted over five decades which amounted to thousands of hours expended beneath the sea surface--and a host of close calls including surveys of the marine life inhabiting two craters that were formed by nuclear bombs that were detonated in the late 1950's. As the focus of my doctoral research, and with the help of my friends, I constructed artificial reefs in Enewetak Atoll lagoon and then monitored the recruitment rate of larval fishes to the newly available habitat.

Another one of the many adventures (that I have referred to as Journeys in the book) is the world altitude record SCUBA dive I made at a lake on the summit of Mauna Kea volcano on the Island of Hawaii. But my true avocation was fish surveys, many of which I received contracts for my services from the State of Hawaii and the National Marine Fisheries Service and often conducted on the Island of Hawaii. Also known the Big Island, in the mid 70's, the reefs were rich in diversity and only beginning to experience the impact of commercial fishing—especially what was then the new business of live aquarium fish collecting.

I hope you share my passion for flowers, streams and forests. I have been lucky to have been in the right place when the aspens changed color and bioluminescent fish lit up the deep sea while brilliant engineers built the first Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plants that have opened a new path to clean energy and healing the climate crisis. I also hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have had in sorting through several thousand images that reminded me of days gone by— but not yet forgotten.

The second book in the Exploring Nature series is in development. You are welcome to send me an E-Mail at nolan@planetropolis.com and I will put you on the notification mailing list.

You are welcome to search for “Ron S. Nolan” on Amazon to see my growing list of science fiction novels. Since I spend most of my days writing, and little time on marketing, reviews are most welcome!

EXPLORING the SCIENCE and
BEAUTY of NATURE

a photographic autobiolgraphy
Book 1 in the Series

Photos of
amazing marine life and

friends that loved to explore.

..like John & Annie Denver

Beauty in plants

Beauty on the beach

and on reefs where predators
dominate the ecosystem.

FREEDOM RIDE:

SHORT STORIES & POEMS

Kindle Preview

Also available at:

Description

From the wheat fields of Kansas to surfing the immense waves on the shores of Planet Nuptia, the author takes readers on a journey which may be referred to as the “future meets the past.”

In “Earth Boy” a child is held captive on Europa and in the ”Longevity Gene” a geneticist searches for a gene complex that may hold the key to immortality while stock car drivers race around a track in Alabama and discover something totally unexpected.

As the book title suggests, searching for and struggling to acquire independence is the underlying theme of Freedom Ride’s short stories which concludes with poems about seagulls, crows, ship wrecks, dangerous sharks and young love that makes today seem like yesterday.

Kindle eBook for $4.99
Paperback for $4.95
Hardback for $29.95

Description

In a last ditch effort to halt the disastrous global warming crisis fueled by profit-driven corporate governments in the year 2029, scientists at the Deep Space Mining Moonbase launch satellites containing nano bots designed to seal off carbon emissions from the Arctic tundra. However when the rocket pods are released prematurely, they set off an EM pulse which is mistakenly interpreted as a missile attack and all out global war is imminent.

It all begins in a biogenetics lab in Berkeley, California where Astra, a head-turning, Brazilian girl in her mid-twenties discovers the key to immortality—at least in flatworms. But she is forced to put her research on hold as a response to the blistering, white hot winds rocketing through the Bay Area. Her new mission is to assemble cryogenic repositories (‘Arks’) of frozen plant and animal embryos to preserve them for the future. However, she is opposed by a fanatical religious group that will do anything to stop her. But is it the Ark that they really want…or something hidden within? Either way, they will have to go to the mining base on the moon to find out! Will the war be avoided or is it inevitable?

eBook versions available at:

Barnes and Noble

....and at Apple iBooks,Kobo
and OverDrive via Smashwords

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Psychic Dimensions