Antarctica

A history of the scientific discovery of the Antarctic

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Antarctica today is a continent dedicated to science, uniquely governed by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. It offers us new understandings in many fields, from astronomy and our atmosphere, through climate change, geology and oceanography to zoology. But science in the south has a long pedigree, stretching back to the South Pole expeditions of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration of a century ago and beyond. The geographical discoveries, heroic tales - and tragedies - of many of these expeditions are well known. Perhaps less so are their scientific achievements, with that science conducted under the severest of conditions and at great personal risk. What scientific work did these expeditions do, who were the scientists and what is their legacy?

This book will cover a period of roughly 100 years, from the 1840s to the 1940s, from James Clark Ross' expeditions to locate the South Magnetic Pole (he had already discovered the North Magnetic Pole) through to a secret wartime operation of the 1940s called Operation Tabarin, which was eventually to lead to today's British Antarctic Survey.