Wondrous Cold

A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughs Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering nineteenth-century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica’s glacial rim for unknown lands beyond. These intrepid Victorian explorers—James Ross, Dumont D’Urville, and Charles Wilkes—laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita. Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth’s climate history, which is recorded in the south polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens to inundate coastal cities worldwide. Interweaving the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of its Victorian forerunners, Gillen D’Arcy Wood describes Antarctica’s role in a planetary drama of plate tectonics, climate change, and species evolution stretching back more than thirty million years. An original, multifaceted portrait of the polar continent emerges, illuminating our profound connection to Antarctica in its past, present, and future incarnations. A deep-time history of monumental scale, Land of Wondrous Cold brings the remotest of worlds within close reach—an Antarctica vital to both planetary history and human fortunes.

A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughs Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering nineteenth-century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica’s glacial rim for unknown lands beyond. These intrepid Victorian explorers—James Ross, Dumont D’Urville, and Charles Wilkes—laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita. Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth’s climate history, which is recorded in the south polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens to inundate coastal cities worldwide. Interweaving the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of its Victorian forerunners, Gillen D’Arcy Wood describes Antarctica’s role in a planetary drama of plate tectonics, climate change, and species evolution stretching back more than thirty million years. An original, multifaceted portrait of the polar continent emerges, illuminating our profound connection to Antarctica in its past, present, and future incarnations. A deep-time history of monumental scale, Land of Wondrous Cold brings the remotest of worlds within close reach—an Antarctica vital to both planetary history and human fortunes.

For centuries Antarctica has captured the imagination of explorers, scientists, and armchair travelers. Its starkly beautiful landscape, extraordinary wildlife, and harsh climate only begin to suggest the wonders of the world's least understood continent. Intrigued by a part of the planet vividly described in the journals of explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Henry Shackleton, award-winning photographer Joan Myers set out to see for herself why people are drawn to such an inhospitable and uncompromising place. Over the course of several trips, Myers traversed the continent by foot, plane, helicopter, snowmobile, and Coast Guard icebreaker. Working in below-freezing temperatures, braving blizzards and wind chills as low as -84°F, she captured entrancing panoramas of Antarctica's beauty and vast scale, teeming penguin rookeries and docile seals, and the ghostly abandoned huts of early explorers. From her temporary base at McMurdo Station, Antarctica's primary research facility, she documented the daily lives of the scientists and support staff who work in this extreme environment. Wondrous Cold features more than 180 of Myers' captivating color and black-and-white photographs. Her engaging journal entries describe the physical challenges of taking photographs in a place where a tripod freezes solid in five minutes as well as the research, rhythms, and rituals of life on the Ice. New York Times writer Sandra Blakeslee contributes sidebars on the science conducted at the world's most remote frontier.

For centuries Antarctica has captured the imagination of explorers, scientists, and armchair travelers. Its starkly beautiful landscape, extraordinary wildlife, and harsh climate only begin to suggest the wonders of the world's least understood continent. Intrigued by a part of the planet vividly described in the journals of explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Henry Shackleton, award-winning photographer Joan Myers set out to see for herself why people are drawn to such an inhospitable and uncompromising place. Over the course of several trips, Myers traversed the continent by foot, plane, helicopter, snowmobile, and Coast Guard icebreaker. Working in below-freezing temperatures, braving blizzards and wind chills as low as -84°F, she captured entrancing panoramas of Antarctica's beauty and vast scale, teeming penguin rookeries and docile seals, and the ghostly abandoned huts of early explorers. From her temporary base at McMurdo Station, Antarctica's primary research facility, she documented the daily lives of the scientists and support staff who work in this extreme environment. Wondrous Cold features more than 180 of Myers' captivating color and black-and-white photographs. Her engaging journal entries describe the physical challenges of taking photographs in a place where a tripod freezes solid in five minutes as well as the research, rhythms, and rituals of life on the Ice. New York Times writer Sandra Blakeslee contributes sidebars on the science conducted at the world's most remote frontier.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A detailed description of the society and culture of Barbados and other Caribbean Islands, first published in 1854.