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Chapters 8, 10, 20, and
23 written by April
Holladay | |
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Chapter 8: Life is hard for Arctic
Plants and Animals In summer, the Arctic’s land is cold and windy. In winter, when night falls, the land freezes solid. Yet plants and animals abound: those few species that have adapted to Arctic extremes. Just a few inches below the surface, the earth never thaws. This permanently frozen ground, the permafrost, nourishes no life. The land above is called tundra and supports plants of a peculiar nature: those that live close to the ground. Land animals, like plants, of course have adapted to the cold and wind, but in a wider variety of ways than plants. They have evolved a variety of strategies for staying warm and obtaining and conserving the food energy they need to stay alive. Plants Hug the Ground to SurviveNo trees grow here, except along great rivers. Plants can’t push roots into frozen ground and frozen cells die. Sensibly, plants snooze under snow blankets, awaiting the few weeks in the Arctic summer when tundra thaws . . . Chapter 10: The first people move into the Arctic Before people could survive in the Arctic, they needed a technology to handle the cold. Folks managed that in Siberia. Then the Ice Age actually fostered eastward migrations by opening a huge strip of land between Siberia and Alaska. First plants colonized the newly bared land. Animals came to eat the tundra plants. Human hunters trailed the animals into the New World. Some became Eskimos, who innovated new tools and weapons. Eventually, Eskimos became successful whalers, followed the bowhead whale as it migrated east, and settled the Arctic. Humans Enter Siberia’s Arctic Ice flowed south in great sheets but slowly enough that plants and animals adapted. So did people, using technology. Eons later, the ice melted, glaciers retreated, and seeds blew into the bared land. Grazing animals wandered north, eating the new growth. Hunters, animal and human, trailed the plant eaters. As the ice moved, so people moved. . . Chapter 20: Antarctica skies and stars The high Antarctic plateau, near the South Pole, is the best place on Earth to see stars, young galaxies, black holes, exploding supernovae, and the faint glimmer of time’s beginning. Antarctica’s air is thin, clean, and above all cold. Starlight shines brightly through the thin, clean air of the high plateau (9300 feet). Most importantly, the cold reduces water vapor in the air. Thus, starlight never appears hazy nor twinkles. . . Chapter 23: The mystery of the cooling continent: Antarctica Antarctica is a strange and exotic land. She holds secrets of a mysterious past that illuminates Earth’s turbulent, molten-iron-driven history. Alien rocks rain upon Antarctica’s icy fields and hold secrets of far-away worlds. We have solved some mysteries; many remain. Shackleton Found Coal January 1909, Antarctica, trekking south for 850 miles: Ernest Shackleton (leader), Jameson Adams (meteorologist), Eric Marshall (surgeon and cartographer), and Frank Wild (provisions). Mist and clouds swirl and block the sun. No shadows. All ridges, hollows, and ledges flatten into a white nothingness. A fragile snow crust pretends a fake firm path. Unseen danger lurks. Suddenly a Manchurian pony slips, his legs flailing wildly for purchase. He slides to a stop at the abyss edge. The men peer through a curtain of giant icicles into a black crevasse framed in blue ice that descends without end. One breaks off an icicle as big as he and slides it over the edge—down, down, down it goes. They cannot hear an echo from its endless fall. They don’t make it to the South Pole. They get within 97 miles (155 km) of their goal when survival dominates valor. But they gain fame by discovering a route up through . . .
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