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

273 Pages·2011·18.3 MB·English

by  Edmund Stump

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.
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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