Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme

Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme

With stunning original photographs, an Antarctic scientist and explorer takes us to one of the most sublime, remote, and pristine regions on the planet.   The interior of Antarctica is an utterly pristine wilderness, a desolate landscape of ice, wind, and rock; a landscape so unfamiliar as to seem of another world. This place has been known to only a handful of early explorers and the few scientists fortunate enough to have worked there. Edmund Stump is one of the lucky few. Having climbed, photographed, and studied more of the continent-spanning Transantarctic Mountains than any other person on Earth, this geologist, writer, and photographer is uniquely suited to share these alien sights. With stories of Stump’s forty years of journeys and science, Otherworldly Antarctica contains 130 original color photographs, complemented by watercolors and sketches by artist Marlene Hill Donnelly. Over three chapters—on the ice, the rock, and the wind—we meet snowy paths first followed during Antarctica’s Heroic Age, climb the central spire of the Organ Pipe Peaks, peer into the crater of the volcanic Mount Erebus, and traverse Liv Glacier on snowmobile, while avoiding fatal falls into the blue interiors of hidden crevasses. Along the way, we see the beauty of granite, marble, and ice-cored moraines, meltwater ponds, lenticular clouds, icebergs, and glaciers. Many of Stump’s breathtaking images are aerial shots taken from the planes and helicopters that brought him to the interior. More were shot from vantages gained by climbing the mountains he studied. Some were taken from the summits of peaks. Many are of places no one had set foot before—or has since. All seem both permanent and precarious, connecting this otherworld to our fragile own. “Explorer and geologist Stump went on his first research mission to Antarctica in 1970 and returned many times over the following decades. The new book Otherworldly Antarctica offers a selection of the photographs he took on these trips, capturing the ‘innumerable forms’ that ice can take. Icebergs that could have been carved by the sculptor Henry Moore glide through still waters; a meltwater pond refreezes, releasing a shimmer of dissolved gases; a crevasse seems to include every shade of blue. . . . Now in his seventies, he writes that if he ‘had one hour more to savor Antarctica,’ he’d be standing in a field of wind-carved snow ‘as far as the eye could see.’” -- Peter Saenger ― Wall Street Journal “Over forty years, geologist Stump has climbed, photographed and studied much of the 3,500-kilometre length of Antarctica’s Transantarctic Mountains—‘my stomping ground’—including its highest summit. His book of photographs is his ‘homage to Antarctica, the continent of ice,’ captioned by himself with playful illustrations by Marlene Hill Donnelly. Mountains, ice, snow and sea dominate, with remarkably few signs of life apart from distant fellow explorers, and steam belching from Mount Erebus’s noxious crater.” ― Nature "In captivating words, photographs, and illustrations, geologist Stump’s book Otherworldly Antarctica covers the 'stark and utterly pristine' continent where winter never leaves. . . . Stump is meditative, even spiritual, in his descriptions of his favorite place. . . . His memorable photographs of crevasses contain stunning hues from the palest powder blue to midnight black; icebergs and glacier tongues form exquisite sculptures as they blend into the sea. And there’s a thrilling peek along the rim of Mt. Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano. . . . Otherworldly Antarctica is a fascinating armchair travel book, approaching the remotest place on Earth with a knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and artistic guide. It will be a standout in collections about polar exploration or landscape photography." ― Foreword Reviews (starred review) "Fifty years ago, geologist Stump began a love affair with the beautiful but also brutal world of Antarctica. Luckily for us, he’s also a great photographer and he snapped gorgeous pictures of the continent while doing scientific research there. Major bonus points that he accomplished this in an age before drones. . . . I found myself spending more time studying photos, inhaling this truly 'otherworldly' place. Some photos made the landscape appear to be an intimate fifty or so feet across only to have the author reveal a scale of miles instead. Other images are up close and have a span of [a] mere twelve inches." ― Dear Author "Beginning in 1970, geologist Stump spent four decades climbing, surveying, and, thankfully, photographing the Transantarctic Mountains that stretch like a backbone across the great southern ice sheets. This selection of photos and anecdotes is both a retrospective of a unique career and an intimate tour of a polar world few people ever get to see in person. For a section on ice, Stump selects images of the many forms that it takes in this frozen world, and recounts a perilous trip up a cr