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The Roof at the Bottom of the World: Discovering the Transantarctic Mountains PDF

273 Pages·2011·18.3 MB·English
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The Roof at the Bottom of the World The Roof at the Bottom of the World Discovering the Transantarctic Mountains Edmund Stump NEW HavEN aNd LoNdoN Frontispiece: Atop the Tusk, a 600-foot horn of pure marble, a seeker contemplates the scene. In the distance Mount Fridtjof Nansen rises to an elevation of 13,350 feet above Liv Glacier, flowing from the right rear of the photo. Roald Amundsen’s party found passage to the polar plateau on the far side of Fridtjof Nansen, becoming the first to reach the South Pole on December 16, 1911. Eighteen years later, Richard Byrd navigated the first flight to the pole, following a course up Liv Glacier. Copyright © 2011 by Edmund Stump. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz. Set in Galliard Oldstyle and The Sans Semibold type by BW&A Books, Inc. Printed in China. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stump, Edmund. The roof at the bottom of the world : discovering the Transantarctic Mountains / Edmund Stump. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-17197-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Orogeny—Antarctica—Transantarctic Mountains. 2. Geology—Antarctica—Transantarctic Mountains. 3. Transantarctic Mountains (Antarctica) I. Title. qe621.5.a6s77 2011 551.43'209989—dc22 2011006403 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Publication of The Roof at the Bottom of the World has been made possible by the generous support of the following benefactors: Scion Natural History association daryl a. Russell Bear Gulch Foundation Harry Rubin, in memory of Morton J. Rubin, whose interest in antarctica took him there many times, including fifteen months with the Russians at Mirny Station during the IGY James W. Collinson Thomas Henderson Julia and Ralph Maccracken Julie Smith-david and Scott david John Splettstoesser Marjory Spoerri and School of Earth and Space Exploration College of Liberal arts and Sciences arizona State University This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Sis and Warren, for encouragement, for discipline, and this body that takes me the places I’ve been. Contents Preface, ix acknowledgments, xiii 1 Through the Portal: discoveries along Coastal victoria Land, 1 2 From the Sea to the Ice Plateau: The Crossing of victoria Land, 34 3 Fire, Ice, and the Magnetic Pole: Further discoveries in victoria Land, 66 4 Penetrating the Interior: discoveries in the Central Transantarctic Mountains, 95 5 Beyond the Horizon: discoveries in the Queen Maud Mountains, 127 6 Earth’s Land’s End: The Exploration of Scott Glacier, 171 7 To the IGY and Beyond: Filling in the Spaces, 205 Epilogue, 237 viii appendix 1: The Rock Cycle, 241 appendix 2: Geologic Time, 243 Glossary, 245 Bibliography, 247 Index, 249 Contents Preface The familiar images of antarctica include penguins frolicking in their rooker- ies, endless plains of windswept snow and ice, and tourist or research vessels cruising the straits of the antarctic Peninsula with its rocky cliVs hung with glaciers and icebergs drifting calmly by. But antarctica also has a mountain range continental in scale, a re- mote and desolate wilderness of rock that rises defiantly above the ice. as the andes are to South america and the Himalayas are to asia, so are the Transantarctic Mountains to antarctica. Yet they remain largely unknown, a secret of the few who have had the privi- lege of journeying there. The stories of the discovery and exploration of the Transantarctic Mountains span a century of valiant enterprise, from the days of wooden sailing ships and the first sight- ing by James Clark Ross in 1841, through the heroic era when Scott, Shackleton, and amundsen vied to be the first to attain the South Pole, to the airborne exploits of Byrd in the 1930s. as expeditions pushed deeper into the interior, the Transantarctic Moun- tains unfolded before them as a great, linear fortress of rock, dividing the East antarctic Ice Sheet from the Ross Sea, Ross Ice Shelf, and West antarctic Ice Sheet. The stories of exploration are familiar to those with polar interest, but the territory, less so. This book invites you, whether you know the stories or not, to visualize the trails blazed by these explorers who bore first witness to the wonders beyond the icy sea. Fol- lowing a narrative of the voyages and traverses of those parties that were the first to be- hold new lands, the figures guide the reader along the routes of discovery that penetrated the unknown at the southern extremity of Earth. Fundamental to any exploration is the production of maps, as the evidence of where ix

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The Transantarctic Mountains are the most remote mountain belt on Earth, an utterly pristine wilderness of ice and rock rising to majestic heights and extending for 1,500 miles. In this book, Edmund Stump is the first to show us this continental-scale mountain system in all its stunning beauty and d
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