Antarctica
Page 38
26. A. P. Kapitsa, J. K. Ridley, G. de Q. Robin, M. J. Siegert and I. A. Zotikov, ‘Large deep freshwater lake beneath the ice of central East Antarctica’, Nature, vol. 381, 1996, pp. 684–6; M. J. Siegert, S. Carter, I. Tabacco, S. Popov and D. Blankenship, ‘A revised inventory of Antarctic subglacial lakes’, Antarctic Science, vol. 17, 2005, pp. 453–60.
27. D. J.Wingham, M. J. Siegert, A. Shepherd and A. S. Muir, ‘Rapid discharge connects Antarctic subglacial lakes’, Nature, vol. 440, 2006, pp. 1033–6.
28. H.A. Fricker, T. Scambos, R. Bindschadler and L. Padman, ‘An active subglacial water system in West Antarctica mapped from space’, Science, vol. 315, 2007, pp. 1544–8.
29. S. P. Carter et al., ‘Radar-based subglacial lake classification in Antarctica’, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, vol. 8, 2007, p. Q03016.
30. J. C. Priscu et al., ‘Antarctic subglacial water: Origin, evolution and ecology’, in Polar Lakes and Rivers, p. 119, W. Vincent and J. Laybourn-Parry, eds, Oxford University Press, 2008.
31. L. A. Stearns, B. E. Smith and G. S. Hamilton, ‘Increased flow speed on a large East Antarctic outlet glacier caused by subglacial floods’, Nature Geoscience, vol. i, 2008, pp. 827–3; Helen Amanda Fricker, ‘Water Slide’, Nature Geoscience, vol. i, 2008, pp. 809–16. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo367.
32. Robin Bell et al., ‘Large subglacial lakes in East Antarctica at the onset of fast-flowing ice streams’, Nature, vol. 445, 22 February 2007, pp. 904–7.
33. I found out later that this contains a feature called ‘Liebert Cirque’, which is not far as the helicopter flies from ‘Denton Glacier’.
34. Adam R. Lewis, David R. Marchant, Douglas E. Kowalewski, Suzanne L. Baldwin and Laura E. Webb, ‘The age and origin of the Labyrinth, western dry valleys, Antarctica; evidence for extensive middle Miocene subglacial floods and freshwater discharge to the Southern Ocean’, Geology, vol. 34, July 2006, pp. 513–16; D. R. Marchant, S. S. R. Jamieson and D. E. Sugden, ‘The geomorphic signature of massive subglacial floods in Victoria Land, Antarctica’, in Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments, Martin J. Siegert, Mahlon C. Kennicutt II and Robert A. Bindschadler, eds, Geophysical Monograph Series, vol. 192, 2011.
35. Dominic Hodgson et al., ‘Antarctic climate and environment history in the pre-instrumental period’, in Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, p. 123, Victoire Press, Cambridge, 2009.
36. N. P. Gillett et al., 'Attribution of polar warming to human influence’, Nature Geoscience, vol. i, 2008, pp. 750–4; Eric J. Steig et al., ‘Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year’, Nature, vol. 457, 2009, pp. 459–62.
37. Byrd, Alone, p. 181.
38. Jake’s friends at the South Pole set up a page dedicated to him, which you can see here: http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/00s/jake/ jakespeed.html. There is also an interview with him on New Zealand TV, shortly after the accident, in which he is exactly the same thoughtful, funny and irrepressible person I met at the South Pole, proudly demonstrating the use of his new claw hand, and talking about his plans to go surfing—which he then did: http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/stranded-in-middle-ice-2901536/video.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Alexander, Caroline, The Endurance, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999
Amundsen, Roald, The South Pole, Hurst &Co, London, 2001
Bainbridge, Beryl, The Birthday Boys, Carroll and Graf, New York, 1991
Byrd, Admiral Richard E, Alone, Kodansha International, New York, 1995
Cassidy, William, Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley, The Worst Journey in the World, Picador, London, 1994
Crawford, Janet, That First Antarctic Winter, Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1998
Gosnell, Mariana, Ice, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005
Griffiths, Tom, Slicing the Silence, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2007
Huntford, Roland, Race for the South Pole—The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen, Continuum, London, 2010
Huntford, Roland, Scott and Shackleton, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1979
Huntford, Roland, Shackleton, Abacus, London, 1985
Johnson, Nicholas, Big Dead Place—Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica, Feral House, Los Angeles, 2005
Riffenburgh, Beau, Nimrod, Bloomsbury, London, 2004
Riffenburgh, Beau, Racing with Death, Bloomsbury, London, 2008
Robinson, Kim Stanley, Antarctica, Bantam Books, New York, 1999
Rubin, Jeff, Lonely Planet: Antarctica, Lonely Planet, 2008
Mawson, Douglas, The Home of the Blizzard, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1998
Pyne, Stephen J, The Ice—A Journey to Antarctica, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1998
Scott, Robert F., Scott’s Last Expedition, Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1913
Shackleton, Ernest, South, Robinson, London, 1998
Solomon, Susan, The Coldest March, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001
Spufford, Francis, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, Faber and Faber, 2003
Spufford, Francis, ed.,‘The Antarctic’ in The Ends of the Earth, Granta Books, London, 2007
Tyler-Lewis, Kelly, The Lost Men, Bloomsbury, London, 2006
Wheeler, Sara, Terra Incognita—Travels in Antarctica, Vintage, London, 1997
Acknowledgements
This book has been more than ten years in the making, and many people have helped both in the gathering of information and the process of writing.
My visits to Antarctica were only possible because of generous grants and programme awards from the British Antarctic Survey, the US National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, the French Institut Paul-Emile Victor, the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide, and Peregrine Voyages. Thanks in particular to Nino Cucinotta, Karl Erb, Gerard Jugie, David McGonigal, Nick Owens and Chris Rapley, and for logistical help to Dave Bresnahan, Linda Capper, Athena Dinar, Patrice Godon, Guy Guthridge and Elaine Hood. Thanks also to Jeremy Webb, for commissioning me to make my first, fateful trip to the continent.
As well as the people mentioned in the book who I spent time with on the ice, thanks in the US programme to ‘computer whisperer’ Holly Troy, my McMurdo roommate Elizabeth ‘E. T.’ Traver, and my fellow ‘Artists and Writers’ Elena Glasberg, Susan Fox Rogers and Connie Samaras. At Concordia thanks to Gilles Balada, Guillaume Dargaud, Michel Munot and Hubert Sinardet, and to Laurent Augustin for permission to quote from his personal diary. On board the Nathaniel B. Palmer, thanks to my cabin mate Mary Roach, and on the HMS Endurance, thanks also to Athena Dinar and Martin Redfern.
As well as the scientists mentioned in the book, who generously shared their research and in many case also their field sites and camps, thanks are due to Richard Alley, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Michael Bender, Bob Bindschadler, Mike Castellini, Jérôme Chappellaz, Pete Convey, Henry Kaiser, Karl Kreutz, Berry Lyons, Doug MacAyeal, Phil Leat, Robert Mulvaney, Dean Peterson, Dominique Raynaud, Julian Scott, Andy Smith and Eric Wolff.
Thanks to Simon Marr for support during my longest trip, and to Eileen Cywinski and her class at St Clare’s whose enthusiasm, engagement and brilliant questions sustained us through six weeks of slog aboard the HMS Endurance. Thanks are also due to Captain Bob Tarrant and the Endurance’s crew, to the crew and expedition staff of the Akademik Sergey Vavilov, and to the crew and scientists aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer.
The following people read all or part of the manuscript: David Ainley, Anita Anand, Kent Anderson, Fred Barron, Don Blankenship, David Bodanis, Sam Bowser, Richard Brandt, Olivier Chastel, Gene Domack, Peter Doran, Julian Dowdeswell, Michael Evans, Bob Garrot, Caroline Gilbert, Ralph Harvey, Elaine Hood, Karen Howell, Rosa Malloy, Damian Malloy, Dave Marchant, Darran Messem, Rob Mulvaney, Thierry Raclot, Martin Redfern, Larry Rickard, Sara Russell, Leslie Sage, Leon Ta
yler, John Vandecar and David Vaughan. Their comments and suggestions improved the manuscript considerably; any remaining errors are, of course, my own.
Thanks to all my colleagues at Xyntéo for their unfailing support, especially Osvald Bjelland and Phil Harrison. Thanks also to my friends who have supported me with tolerance and cheer throughout this long process, especially Anita Anand, Jeanne Barron, Dave Barrows, Stephen Battersby, Romy Brandeis, Natalie deWitt, Alex Eccleston, Karen and Wayne Howell, Lucy Legg, Donna Lieberman, Dominick McIntyre, Darran Messem, Adrienne Schure, Simon Singh, Billy Stampur, John Vandecar and Jeff and Jeany Wolf. Thanks also to my friends at Paragon, especially Hazel Gale, Lisa Kent, Stuart Lawson, Keith Morris, Jonathan Smith and Mark Walker, for helping me to clear my head when I most needed it.
Extra special thanks are due to five people: Jill Ashley, Fred Barron, David Bodanis, Martin Redfern and Leon Tayler. Without their encouragement and timely interventions, this book could not have been written.
Thanks to the splendid efforts of my agent, Michael Carlisle, I have been blessed all along with two of the best editors in the business. Andrea Schulz from Harcourt believed in this book before there was even a proposal to show for it and has never wavered in her support. Bill Swainson from Bloomsbury has gone far beyond the call of duty in helping me find my way through the blizzard. I certainly could not have done this without him.
Thanks to my wonderful family: Rosa, Helen, Ed, Christian, Sarah, Damian, Jayne, Niall and Shannon, Felix and Ella. And finally thanks to all the foolishly brave men and women who have been drawn to the white continent over the scant few centuries that we have known of its existence. They have paved the way to a new understanding not just of Antarctica, but ultimately, of course, of ourselves.
The author and publisher would like to acknowledge and thank the following for permission to reproduce quoted material on the following pages: pp. 50, 51, 52, 54, 55 and 143, from The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (Picador, 1994), by permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge; pp. 74–5, from Racing with Death: Douglas Mawson—Antarctic Explorer by Beau Riffenburgh (Bloomsbury, 2008). Reproduced with permission of the author and the Mawson Centre at the South Australian Museum; pp.116–17, from Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica by William Cassidy (Cambridge University Press, 2003); p.264 from Lonely Planet: Antarctica by Jeff Rubin (Lonely Planet, 2008). Reproduced with permission; pp. 156 and 174, from Big Dead Place—Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica by Nicholas Johnson (Feral House, 2005). Reproduced with permission; p. 298, from Shackleton by Roland Huntford (Abacus, 198s); pp.300–01 and 302, from The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999). Reproduced with permission; pp. 332, 333, 335 and 336, from Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Copyright © 1938 by Richard E. Byrd, renewed 1966 Marie A. Byrd, Afterword Copyright ©2003 by Kieran Mulvaney, Alone was originally published G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Original text design by Paul Johnson. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Index
Adelaide Island, [>]
Adélie Land, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Adélie penguins, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Dumont d’Urville colony, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
metabolism and breeding, [>]–[>], [>]
numbers, [>]
Ross Island colony, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
serial monogamy, [>]
Agabi, Karim, [>]
Ainley, David, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Akademik Sergey Vavilov, [>]–[>]
Aladdin’s Cave, [>]
Aldrin, Buzz, [>]
Aleutian Islands, [>]–[>]
Alexandria, [>]
algae, [>]
Allan Hills, [>], [>], [>], [>]
Almirante Brown Station, [>]
Alps, [>], [>]
altitude sickness, [>], [>]
Amundsen, Roald, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, see South Pole
Amundsen Sea Embayment, [>], [>]–[>]
Anderson, John, [>]
Anderson, Kent, [>]–[>]
anorthite, [>]
Antarctic Circle, crossing, [>]–[>]
Antarctic Treaty, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Antarctopelta oliveroi, [>]
Apollo programme, [>]–[>]
Armstrong, Neil, [>]–[>]
Asgard Range, [>]
asteroids, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Astrolabe, [>]
Atacama Desert, [>]
Atwood, Margaret, [>]
Augustin, Laurent, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
aurora australis, [>], [>]
Axel Heiberg Glacier, [>]
bacteria, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
cyanobacteria, [>], [>]–[>]
nanobacteria, [>]
Baden-Powell, Lord, [>]
balloon flights, [>]
Bartolomei, Rita, [>], [>], [>]
Battle of Waterloo, [>]
Battleship Promontory, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Bay of Whales, [>]
BBC World Service, [>]
Beacon Valley, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Beardmore Glacier, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bell, Robin, [>]–[>]
Belléoud, Didier, [>]
Bellingshausen Station, [>]–[>]
berms, [>], [>]
Bertrand, Yann-Arthus, [>]
Big Bang, [>]–[>], [>]
Bjaaland, Olav, [>]
black holes, [>], [>]
Blankenship, Don, [>]–[>], [>]
blue ice, [>]–[>], [>]
blue light, [>]–[>]
Borges, Jorge Luis, [>]
Bowers, Birdie, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
Bowser, Sam, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Brandt, Richard, [>]–[>]
Bresnahan, Dave, [>], [>]–[>]
brine, [>]
Brown, Kirsty, [>]–[>]
Brown Peninsula, [>]
Bull, Colin, [>]
Bunger Hills Oasis, [>]
bunny boots, [>]
Bush, George W., [>]
Byrd, Admiral Richard, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Byrd Glacier, [>]
Calvaresi, Camillo, [>]
Canada Glacier, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Cap Prud’homme, [>]
Cape Adare, [>]
Cape Bird, [>]
Cape Crozier, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Cape Disappointment, [>]
Cape Evans, [>], [>], [>]
Cape Horn, [>]–[>], [>]
Cape Royds, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
carbon dioxide, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
carbon monoxide, [>]
carbonates, [>]–[>]
Carpenter, John, [>]
Carroll, Lewis, [>]
Cassidy, Bill, [>]–[>]
Chassigny, [>]
Chastel, Olivier, [>]–[>]
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Chicago World’s Fair, [>]
children, [>], [>]–[>]
Chilingarov, Artur N., [>]
Christchurch, New Zealand, [>], [>]
churches, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
clams, [>]–[>]
Clinton, Bill, [>]
colonisation, [>]–[>]
Commonwealth Mountains, [>]
Concordia Station, see Dome C
continental drift, [>]
contraction-crack polygons, [>]
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), [>]–[>]
cosmic rays, [>], [>]–[>]
crabs and lobsters, [>]–[>]
Crary Lab aquarium, [>], [>], [>]
Crylophosaurus ellioti, [>]
Dahl-Jensen, Dorthe, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
dark energy, [>]
Day After Tomorrow, The, [>]
Deception Island,
[>]
Denton, George, [>]–[>]
Denver, [>]–[>]
Desolate Island, [>]
Devries, Art, [>]–[>]
Dickens, Charles, [>]
dinosaurs, [>], [>]–[>]
Discovery, [>]
Dissostichus mawsoni, [>]
dog livers, [>]
dogs, ban on, [>]–[>]
Domack, Eugene, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Dome A (Kunlun Station), [>]
Dome C (Concordia Station)
ice cores and climate change, [>]–[>]
ice coring, [>]–[>]
relationships, [>]–[>]
temperatures, [>]
under-ice lakes, [>]
women, [>]–[>]
Doran, Peter, [>]–[>], [>]
Drake Passage, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Dufour, Marianne, [>]
Dumont d’Urville, Adèle, [>]
Dumont d’Urville, Jules, [>]
Dumont d’Urville base [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
penguin colonies, [>], [>]–[>]
Dunbar, Rob, [>]–[>], [>]
Dunbar, Steve, [>]–[>]
Duraffourg, Jean-Louis, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Earth
iron core, [>]
life on, [>]–[>]
magnetic field, [>]
orbit around Sun, [>]–[>]
rotation, [>]
earthquakes, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
El Nakhla El Baharia, [>]
Elephant Island, [>], [>]–[>]
Elephant Moraine, [>]
emperor penguins, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
breeding cycle, [>]–[>]
eggs and embryology, [>], [>]–[>]