Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice by Gillen D'Arcy Wood

Book Description

Secondhand. Fine condition. Large size trade paperback.

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 in search of 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 recorded in the South Polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens the inundation of coastal cities worldwide.

Interweaving the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of their Victorian-era 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.