A paralysed landscape

‘Very, very, very sexy’, a field-researcher scratches in his Antarctic notebook. He is describing a meteorite the size of a £1 coin that he has just picked up off the ice. The episode, recounted in Gabrielle Walker’s hugely informative book, reveals the passion of intrepid polar scientists. From the enthusiasm and diligence on display in these pages, one senses that the author shares their feelings.

With a PhD in natural sciences and a solid career in science journalism, Walker is well placed to tackle the wide range of polar disciplines. She calls the Antarctic a ‘science playground’, and has visited five times, kneeling over holes in the ice with many of the world’s leading researchers. 

The book is structured geographically. On the east coast a biologist considers whether a penguin has a sense of self, while in the Dry Valleys (‘Mars on earth’), a geologist explains why tectonic forces that cause the rest of the world to buckle and warp have been subdued for an extraordinary stretch of time in that ‘paralysed’ landscape. At the South Pole, an astronomer sets up a telescope which will pick up the afterglow of the Big Bang. Walker uses direct speech to render the material digestible, allowing her protagonists to speak for themselves. She has a gift for lay analogy, as a popular science writer must. ‘The earliest days of the Solar System’, she writes, ‘were like a celestial billiards game with half-formed planetoids slamming into each other.’

Besides theory, Walker reveals the reality of daily life for researchers and their assistants, both on base and in the field. ‘Sharing a pyramid tent with one other person,’ she says, having done so many times, ‘you’ll cook together over a Primus stove wedged between your two sleeping areas, bathed in a cheerful orange glow as the 24-hour daylight filters through the canvas.’