Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future

In this dazzling report, Shubin (Some Assembly Required), a biology professor at the University of Chicago, examines what the Earth’s poles reveal about the planet and the universe. Describing how a team led by Australian explorer Douglas Mawson became the first to find a meteorite in Antarctica during a 1912 excursion that Mawson only narrowly survived after his companion and supplies disappeared down a crevasse, Shubin points out that subsequent study of space rocks preserved in ice there showed many were over a million years older than Earth and offered clues about what material “swirled around the sun prior to the formation of the planets.” Antarctica had vibrant rain forests 90 million years ago, Shubin notes, discussing how ice overtook the continent after atmospheric carbon bonding with rock from the newly formed Himalayan Mountains triggered worldwide cooling. Elsewhere, Shubin offers hair-raising accounts of his own polar voyages, including a 2002 trip to Canada’s Ellesmere Island during which 70 mph winds shredded his tent, and fascinating trivia on the adaptations of Arctic fauna (the Arctic woolly bear caterpillar spends 11 months of the year frozen solid, emerging every July for several years to feast until it stores enough energy to metamorphose into a moth). This enlightens and amazes. Photos. Agent: Katinka Matson, Brockman, Inc. (Feb.)