Publisher's Synopsis
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, and the secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers. 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. Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth's climate history 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 their 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.
