Antarctic Exploration Research Articles

Review ofFootsteps on the ice: the Antarctic diaries of Stuart D. Paine, Second Byrd Expedition, by M.L. Paine

If the reader is looking for another rehashing of one of the adventures of the “Heroic Era” of Antarctic exploration, or another reshaping of the same old material about the three or four explorers from that period who get all the attention, M.L. Paine’s Footsteps on the ice: the Antarctic diaries of Stuart D. Paine, Second Byrd Expedition is not the book for you. But if you are a serious Antarctic buff who wants to learn something new, and really get inside one of the early expeditions of the 20th century, Paine’s volume will be a compelling read.

Sexual Polarities: Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polar Exploration as a Search for Origins Beyond ‘woman’

This paper is about our parents and our predecessors in life and in literature. It specifically interrogates the choice of Polar landscapes for the playing out of narratives of gender difference in stories of Arctic and Antarctic exploration. I have chosen to pay attention to three narratives: Shackleton's South, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ursula Le Guin's short story Sur. They all take place in the icy expanse of the Arctic and Antarctic. I will read them in the light of the question of origins: ‘where do I come from?'

Defending polar empire: opposition to India's proposal to raise the ‘Antarctic Question’ at the United Nations in 1956

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the international response to India's 1956 proposal to raise the ‘Antarctic Question’ at the United Nations. It focuses in particular on the uneasy alliance that developed between the British Commonwealth and Latin America in opposition to the Indian proposal. Although Great Britain, Argentina, and Chile were bitterly disputing the sovereignty of the Antarctic Peninsula region, they shared a common desire to keep the southern continent off the agenda of the United Nations. This ability to work together for common goals, despite their differences, set an important precedent for the Antarctic Treaty that would be signed in 1959. In this way, opposition to the Indian proposal, more than the proposal itself, played an important role in the history of Antarctica in the 1950s. Latin American opposition to the proposal helped to fragment any ‘anti-imperial’ coalition that might have developed in Antarctica. This fragmentation helps us to place the Antarctic Treaty System into the framework of post-colonial studies.

The Arctic cruises of Prince Albert I of Monaco

ABSTRACTFrom an early age, Prince Albert I of Monaco evinced a strong fascination for the polar regions. But it was only after 1898 that he was able to mount four scientific cruises to Svalbard on his yacht, the second Princesse-Alice. The first cruise was an oceanographical and zoological reconnaissance, aimed mainly at adding to the collections of the Musée océanographique de Monaco, the construction of which had just started. In 1899, the focus was on the hydrography and topography of Raudfjorden, of which a map was published. In 1906, meteorology was added to the range of observations and surveys were pursued. The Prince also provided support for two other expeditions, that of the Norwegian, Gunnar Isachsen, to northwestern Spitsbergen, and that of the Scotsman, William Bruce, to Prins Karls Forland. The Prince's expedition in 1907 was aimed at completing the results from the previous summer. Prince Albert also lent his support, either financially, or through gifts or loans of oceanographic instruments, to numerous Arctic and Antarctic explorers. Finally, he showed a keen interest in environmental protection, especially in Svalbard. This is demonstrated by his responses to a questionnaire that Hugo Conwentz sent him in 1912.

CONSERVING AND INTERPRETING THE HISTORIC HUTS OF ANTARCTICA

The four Antarctic huts in the Ross Sea Dependency built during the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration (1899–1917) contain some 15000 artifacts. A program for their conservation and long-term care has been developed over the last six years, culminating in the placement of a conservation laboratory at New Zealand's Scott Base and the employment of conservators to 'winter over' in the Antarctic while conserving the artifacts. There is arguably no more challenging current conservation project, requiring coordination and planning of equipment, supplies, transport of artifacts from the huts to Scott Base, employment of contract conservators and development of cold climate conservation treatment methodologies. Heavily international in focus, to date conservators from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada and Germany have wintered over. This paper reports on a 'work in progress', as the project is not due to be completed until at least 2012. It discusses the broader issue of how the site is being interpreted and the role conservators are playing in this process.

Footsteps on the ice: the Antarctic diaries of Stuart D. Paine, Second Byrd Expedition

If the reader is looking for another rehashing of one of the adventures of the “Heroic Era” of Antarctic exploration, or another reshaping of the same old material about the three or four explorers from that period who get all the attention, M.L. Paine’s Footsteps on the ice: the Antarctic diaries of Stuart D. Paine, Second Byrd Expedition is not the book for you. But if you are a serious Antarctic buff who wants to learn something new, and really get inside one of the early expeditions of the 20th century, Paine’s volume will be a compelling read.

SH09 ANTARCTIC MEDICINE

From the earliest classical cartographers, belief in the existence of a ‘Terra Australis’ was widespread. There had to be a great southern land to balance the geography of the world. Inexorable plate tectonics may have separated Australia and Antarctica 45 million years ago but it was only within the last few hundred years that Abel Tasman and James Cook isolated and defined them as separate lands for science, politics and strategy.In 1901, the Australian colonies had just federated and formed a nation, the Commonwealth of Australia. The International Geographical Congress had proclaimed 1901 as ‘Antarctica’ year. The heroic age of Antarctic exploration was underway.Antarctic medical practice is unique because there is no indigenous population.This review starts with the primitive medicine practiced by doctors on board with Captain James Cook in 1775. The heroic era of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen and Mawson was followed by a highly mechanized transition period and ends with modern medicine used in permanent stations and research.In Antarctica, we have Earth’s remaining tenuous links with outer space (the last two great frontiers). NASA scientists have used Antarctica to test lunar survival strategies because ‘this is as close to lunar conditions as we could get here on Earth’.

Henrik Bull, the Antarctic Exploration Committee and the first confirmed landing on the Antarctic continent

The Norwegian Henrik Johan Bull managed the Antarctic expedition that penetrated the Ross Sea in 1895 and made a landing at Cape Adare, the first confirmed landing on the Antarctic mainland. Bull had attempted to fund the voyage in Melbourne where he had lived since the late 1880s. At that time, Melbourne's learned societies, through their Antarctic Exploration Committee (AEC), were also making strenuous attempts to launch an expedition. The two parties had contact but the differences in their aims resulted in little cooperation. The AEC plans of a joint commercial/scientific expedition with Dundee or Norwegian whalers, and then a joint scientific expedition under Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, foundered due to lack of funds. The plans to include a scientist, nominated by the learned societies, in Bull's expedition also failed. Instead, Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink joined Bull's expedition as an ordinary seaman and an occasional scientist. He used this experience to realise his plans to winter on Antarctica. Both Bull and the AEC were important in developing interest in Antarctic exploration and commerce.

So Many Meetings and Things to Learn and So Little Time

As part of a quest to learn about energy-substrate partitioning in supporting human physiology, in a span of a month commencing at the end of September 2006, I attended three outstanding meetings to be described below. This has been an awesome experience that has been educational, inspirational, and humbling. Many things are encapsulated by the experience, not the least is the ever-increasing pace of discovery and the difficulties we experience in just trying to keep up, let alone get ahead. In the end, I came away feeling a bit like one of the heroes of Antarctic exploration, Apsley Cherry-Garrard. To refresh your memories, Cherry-Garrard was selected by Robert Falcon Scott to serve as the biologist on the 1912 British expedition to the South Pole. Afterward, CherryGarrard authored a memoir, The Worst Journey in the World 1910Y1913 (4). That chronicle and others of surviving expedition members tell us that Scott and four of his companions came second to the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team in the race to reach the South Pole. Another and far less trivial distinction is that the Norwegian made it home, whereas Scott and four companions froze on the way out and chill there still. Cherry-Garrard’s memoir is a testament to human aspiration, bravery, shortcomings, and mortality. In addition, after reading hundreds of pages of this book, there is the perception that Cherry-Garrard never figured out why he was selected to participate. CherryGarrard had no training in biology. He was very myopic, and his thick spectacles were often useless in the Antarctic. Still, in the complete darkness of the Antarctic winter when day and night were indistinguishable, Cherry-Garrard was selected to lead the team in the march to the Emperor penguin rookery. True to his upbringing, Cherry-Garrard carried on, never complaining even when he fell into crevasse after crevasse, each time leaving him to dangle on leather traces above the frozen abyss below. No, he was ever so thankful when his mates pulled him out to resume the lead. To reiterate, after attending the three meetings, I feel as Cherry-Garrard might have felt, that is, one person trekking on but sometimes left dangling out there.

Return to Coalsack Bluff and the Permian–Triassic boundary in Antarctica

Coalsack Bluff was the first discovery site in Antarctica for the latest Permian to earliest Triassic reptile Lystrosaurus. This together with discovery of Permian Glossopteris leaves during the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, indicated not only that Antarctica was part of Gondwanaland, but also that Antarctic rocks recorded faunas from the greatest of all mass extinctions at the Permian–Triassic boundary. Pinpointing the exact stratigraphic level of this life crisis has recently become possible using δ 13C values in terrestrial organic matter. Multiple, short-lived events of 13C depletion may reflect carbon cycle crises, with the isotopic change a measure of terrestrial and atmospheric disequilibrium. Additional evidence for ecosystem reorganization came from changes in paleosol types and their root traces. Such studies previously completed at the Antarctic localities of Graphite Peak, Mount Crean, Portal Mountain, Shapeless Mountain and Allan Hills, are here extended to Coalsack Bluff. Carbon isotopic values in Permian rocks at Coalsack Bluff average − 23.08 ± 0.25‰, but begin to decline within the last coal with leaves ( Glossopteris), roots ( Vertebraria) and permineralized stumps ( Araucarioxylon) of glossopterids. The low point in ä 13C values is − 27.19‰ at 5.6 m above the last coal, which is capped by unusually abundant pyrite, and a claystone breccia with common clasts of redeposited clayey soils. Above this are massive quartz-rich sandstones of braided streams, considered a geomorphic response to deforestation and soil erosion following the mass extinction. Distinctive berthierine-bearing paleosols (Dolores pedotype) within these sandstones have unoxidized iron taken as evidence of severe groundwater hypoxia. Other paleosols at this stratigraphic level are like those in other Early Triassic rocks of Antarctica, which indicate unusually warm and humid conditions for such high paleolatitude lowlands. Waterlogging is also indicated by newly discovered kinds of paleosol (Ernest pedotype) with groundwater calcretes. The lack of peat accumulation in such waterlogged lowlands, berthierine in paleosols and large negative carbon isotopic shift at Coalsack Bluff support the idea of atmospheric pollution with methane from submarine and permafrost clathrates as a cause for the Permian–Triassic mass extinction. Hypoxic soils would have killed lowland plants by preventing root respiration and hypoxic air would have challenged vertebrates with pulmonary edema. Causes for catastrophic methane release remain unclear. Flood basalt eruptions, dolerite intrusions into coal measures, submarine landslides, tectonic faulting, and bolide impact suggested for episodes of methane release at other times are also plausible for the Permian–Triassic boundary.

A century of Antarctic science; planning and serendipity

The British National Antarctic Expedition planned with discreditable bickering, sailed for the Antarctic in 1901 on the Discovery. The venture was well equipped and commanded by R. F. Scott who, without scientific training himself, was nevertheless remarkably in empathy with his scientists. The expedition was foremost among those dispatched around the same time in establishing basic knowledge of the continent. Followed by the second Scott expedition and those of Shackleton and Mawson, a cadre of able and enthusiastic scientists was established. The second involvement of the Discovery in Antarctic exploration was planned without quarrels and with unusual understanding of science by a government department, resulting in a massive accumulation of knowledge about the Southern Ocean. United States expeditions began in 1928, introducing modern technology, thereby extending greatly the scope of Antarctic research. The Norwegian-British-Swedish expedition of 1949–1952 put planned science before geographical exploration. The International Geophysical Year of 1957–1958, supported by governments and planned by international committees, achieved great success. Science has flourished in Antarctica with unplanned and serendipitous findings emerging, for example, the structure of the magnetosphere, collection of meteorites by ice movements, the microbial life of the apparently sterile Dry Valleys and the discovery of the ozone “hole”.

On the Current Location of the Byrd “Snow Cruiser” and Other Artifacts from Little America I, II, III and Framheim

Analysis of maps, sightings, satellite images, and aerial photos indicates that a ∼105 km2 section of the eastern side of the Bay of Whales, containing the buried remains of several bases from the “heroic era” of Antarctic exploration, calved away around late 1961. A small iceberg from this event (or closely spaced events), with the remains of Little America III exposed in the ice face, was sighted in February 1963 near the western Ross Ice Shelf front. Satellite observations of more recent calving events show that most small icebergs from the Bay of Whales area drift westward and repeatedly impact the shelf, fragmenting as they move. This implies that a number of artifacts from the bases, such as the 1939–1941 Snow Cruiser, are likely strewn along the seabed near the 1962 ice-front position. Major Ross Ice Shelf calvings of 2000 and 2002 have removed the ice cover from parts of the 1962 front area for the first time since that period. Thus a search for the artifacts is technically more feasible for the next few years until shelf ice flow re‐covers the area.

Mapping Terra Incognita

The theorizing of a southern continent for more than two millennia before the discovery of Antarctica and its long representation in maps are phenomena unparalleled in the history of geography and are well known. However, the epistemological implications of the mapping of this non-existent place have received little consideration. After preliminary remarks about present-day remote imaging of Antarctica and limits to the completeness of all mapping and knowledge, the article discusses the representation of the southern Terra Incognita in examples of mediaeval and Renaissance maps. It is argued that filling in blank spaces both reflected a yearning for complete knowledge and provided an opportunity for non-geographical discourse that is missing in maps today.

Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalization

Research Article| January 01 2005 Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalization Mariano Siskind Mariano Siskind Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Literature Studies (2005) 42 (1): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/40247458 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Mariano Siskind; Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalization. Comparative Literature Studies 1 January 2005; 42 (1): 1–23. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/40247458 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressComparative Literature Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2005 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.2005The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalization

Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalization

Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antartica's Modern Specificity: Towards a Critique of Globalism

Captain Cook and the Discovery of Antarctica's Modern Specificity:Towards a Critique of Globalization Mariano Siskind "Antarctica is the last great journey left to Man" Ernest Shackleton One can affirm that by the end of Captain James Cook's first circumnavigation of the world, in July 1771, almost every region of the Globe had been discovered, explored, charted and was being incorporated into what the colonial powers conceived as the world. There was still Terra Australis Incognita, or the Southern Continent (as Antarctica was referred to), the only space on Earth still absolutely virgin, unexplored, undiscovered. On August 2nd 1773, after having been the first man to cross the Antarctic Circle during the previous summer, but unable to land on Antarctic soil, Cook wrote on his journal about the need for exploring Antarctica and its seas: Having now crossed or got to the north of Captain Carteret's Track [near Tahiti], no discovery of importance can be made, some few islands is all that can be expected while I remain within the Tropical Seas. As I have now in this and my former Voyage crossed this Ocean from 40° sign South and upward it will hardly be denied but what I must have formed some judgment concerning the great object of my researches (viz) the Southern Continent. Circumstances seem to point out that there is none but this is too important a point to be left to conjenctor [sic], facts must determine it and these can only be had [End Page 1] by visiting the remaining unexplored part of this Sea which will be the work of the remaining of this Voyage.1 In fact, as Philip Edwards notices, the precise instructions imparted by the Royal Society for Cook's second global sea travel were to "further discoveries towards the South Pole."2 During the three years that this expedition lasted (1772-1775) he attempted three penetrations into Antarctica, failing each and every time, although he achieved the first crossing of the Antarctic Circle, and reached a more southern point than ever before (71° sign10'S) in the history of navigation. Most importantly, however, he was the first to make modern-scientific observations about Antarctica, which would mark all of the subsequent attempts to explore the White Continent until today. Although omnipresent as scientific topic or as the background for fascinating adventure narratives, Antarctica has not been studied systematically as a problematic nucleus within the history of modernity. This paper will try to articulate a few questions that do not come up in the very few existing critical approaches to this territory: how can Antarctica and the South Poles (the Geographic and the Magnetic South Poles) be incorporated into the study of what Margaret Cohen calls "The Waterways of Modernity"?3 How do the incorporations of Antarctica and the South Poles interrogate our idea of what Modernity is? And, can one think of a specific "Antarctic Modernity," of Antarctica's modern specificity? I will argue that by failing to explore Antarctica, Captain Cook discovered in fact the very specific way in which Antarctica relates itself (critically) to a certain vein of modernity that could be named globalization. Contemporary to Cook's circumnavigations, Immanuel Kant's political writings on the idea of "universal history" and "perpetual peace," and later on, G.W.F. Hegel's developments on "world history" would shape a notion of Modernity as the historical and territorial expansion of reason to the whole world. Kant and Hegel produced the conditions of possibility to conceive the passage from reason considered as a universal attribute, to the universal (global) expansion of that same reason and its objective manifestations, the state and property rights. In other words, what I will call "a genealogy of globalization" begins with the territorial spatialization of the universal premises of modernity: what is conceptually universal must be also geographically universal, global that is. The reconstruction of Antarctica's modern specificity, of the way Antarctica intersects the history of Western modernity (an encounter epitomized in Cook's disappointment), produces a critique [End Page 2] of this "genealogy of globalization," understood as an instance of mediation between the philosophical meditation on modern reason and the economical...

National Observatories: Contention Continues

McCray replies: I am pleased at the interest my article generated. Both William Howard and Cameron Reed bring up excellent points.As Howard suggests, one feature that distinguishes American astronomy from its counterparts in other countries is its long tradition of private, state, and philanthropic support, which continues to this day. Unlike many other areas of science—nuclear physics, for example—optical astronomy’s private patrons continued to provide generous support even after the federal government became an important postwar patron. The complementary and often competitive relationship between the private and public observatory systems in the US continues to be a powerful force in the community. An indication of the importance of that relationship is the ongoing debate over how to fund and build the next generation of giant telescopes (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 56 8 2003 22 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1611344. August 2003, page 22 ). One is struck by the similarity between optical astronomy and the private–public race in the 1990s to decode the human genome. As J. Merton England’s book A Patron for Pure Science: The National Science Foundation’s Formative Years, 1945–57 (NSF, 1982) shows, NSF saw astronomy as an especially promising area in which to invest in large-scale science facilities. Given the monopoly that the Atomic Energy Commission had on the funding of big accelerators for high-energy physics, fields like astronomy and multidisciplinary endeavors like Antarctic exploration and the International Geophysical Year offered a way for NSF to invest in postwar big science.Although making the national optical observatories dominant may not have been NSF’s stated purpose, the decision to not pursue that goal certainly raised eyebrows in the scientific community. It is hard to identify many areas of postwar science in which national research facilities were of lesser size, scale, or power compared with their private counterparts. During numerous interviews for my recent book Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology (Harvard U. Press, 2004), astronomers frequently mentioned that, in the 1970s, the national telescope’s 4-meter mirror on Kitt Peak was smaller than that in the privately owned 5-meter telescope on Palomar. The situation—indeed, the same ratio—persisted with the two 10-meter Keck telescopes versus the two 8-meter Gemini telescopes. Reed makes a salient point. Whether to close smaller observatories in favor of building new and bigger facilities is a critical issue in the formulation of US science policy for astronomy. Such decisions are made more difficult by the productivity of smaller telescopes and their role in training students. As Reed notes, perhaps the best system is one that favors “democratic meritocracy.” The continuing challenge facing the science community would appear to be how to achieve that ideal.© 2004 American Institute of Physics.

Environmental pollutants from the Scott and Shackleton expeditions during the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration

Early explorers to Antarctica built wooden huts and brought huge quantities of supplies and equipment to support their geographical and scientific studies for several years. When the expeditions ended and relief ships arrived, a rapid exodus frequently allowed only essential items to be taken north. The huts and thousands of items were left behind. Fuel depots with unused containers of petroleum products, asbestos materials, and diverse chemicals were also left at the huts. This investigation found high concentrations of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in soils under and around the historic fuel depots, including anthracene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, chrysene, fluorene, and pyrene, as well as benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[a]pyrene, and fluoranthene, which are recognized carcinogens. Asbestos materials within the huts have been identified and extensive amounts of fragmented asbestos were found littering the ground around the Cape Evans hut. These materials are continually abraded and fragmented as tourists walk over them and the coarse scoria breaks and grinds down the materials. A chemical spill, within the Cape Evans hut, apparently from caustic substances from one of the scientific experiments, has caused an unusual deterioration and defibration on affected woods. Although these areas are important historic sites protected by international treaties, the hazardous waste materials left by the early explorers should be removed and remedial action taken to restore the site to as pristine a condition as possible. Recommendations are discussed for international efforts to study and clean up these areas, where the earliest environmental pollution in Antarctica was produced.

Australia’s Antarctic Turf

Australia’s Antarctic Turf

Hydrocarbon spills on Antarctic soils: effects and management.

Antarctic exploration and research have led to some significant although localized impacts on the environment. Human impacts occur around current or past scientific research stations, typically located on ice-free areas that are predominantly soils. Fuel spills, the most common occurrence, have the potential to cause the greatest environmental impact in the Antarctic through accumulation of aliphatic and aromatic compounds. Effective management of hydrocarbon spills is dependent on understanding how they impact soil properties such as moisture, hydrophobicity, soil temperature, and microbial activity. Numbers of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, typically Rhodococcus, Sphingomonas, and Pseudomonas species for example, may become elevated in contaminated soils, but overall microbial diversity declines. Alternative management practices to the current approach of "dig it up and ship it out" are required but must be based on sound information. This review summarizes current understanding of the extent and effects of hydrocarbon spillage on Antarctic soils; the observed physical, chemical, and biological responses of such soils; and current gaps in knowledge.