Imagine standing on the bottom of the ocean and looking up into a glittering kelp forest alive with darting fish, or watching five-foot-long sharks and giant tuna whiz by at arm’s length, or being surrounded by elegant, lacy white jellyfish as they soar, pulsing, through the water. Visitors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on the coast of Northern California experience all this… and more.

For more than 20 years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has entertained, educated, and fascinated its nearly 2 million annual visitors with pioneering displays of realistic undersea environments. Now NATURE gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the world’s leading centers for marine research and conservation — a marvel of engineering and biology that, literally, captures Oceans in Glass.

To order a copy of Oceans in Glass: Behind the Scenes of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Oceans in Glass was originally posted January 2006.