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Land of Wondrous Cold
The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its IceBy Gillen D'Arcy WoodNarrated by Nigel AnthonyLength8h 6m
About this audiobook
In this audiobook, Nigel Anthony narrates the 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 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. 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.
Audiobook details
GenreScience and Nature
Length8 hrs 6 mins
Narrated byNigel Anthony
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateMar 3, 2020
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Opening Anno, Timeline, Introduction: Our Glacial Earth
9Part 3, Triumph, Chapter 8 - Seas of Grass
2Part 1, Beginnings, Chapter 1 - The Race is Joined
10Chapter 9 - How the Adelie Penguin Got Its Name
3Chapter 2 - Joseph Hooker Travels Through Time
11Chapter 10 - Wilkes Discovers a Continent
4Chapter 3 - In the Land of Fire
12Chapter 11 - Message in a Bottle
5Part 2, Trials, Chapter 4 - D'Urville Battles the Pack
13Chapter 12 - Ross in Wonderland
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6Chapter 5 - The Voyage of the Flying Fish
14Chapter 13 - Homecoming
7Chapter 6 - Madame D'Urville's Letter
15Postlude: Last Ice, Closing Anno
8Chapter 7 - Ross Falls Behind