Water, Ice & Stone: Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes

by Bill Green

Overview

John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Book
PEN/Martha Albrand Award Finalist

“[Green’s] prose rings with the elemental clarity of the ice he knows so well.” —PEN Awards Committee citation

A classic of contemporary nature writing, the award-winning Water, Ice & Stone is both a scientific and poetic journey into Antarctica, addressing the ecological importance of the continent within the context of climate change. Bill Green has been traveling to this remote and primordial place at the bottom of the Earth since 1968. With this book he focuses on the McMurdo Dry Valleys—an area that is deceptively timeless as a stark landscape of rock and ice. Here, Green delves into the geochemistry of the region and discovers a wealth of data, which vividly speaks to the health and climate of the larger world.

Bill Green is a geochemist and professor emeritus at Miami Universityin Oxford, Ohio. He first traveled to Antarctica in 1968 and began conducting research there in 1980. He is also the author of Boltzmann’s Tomb: Travels in Search of Science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934137086
Publisher:	Bellevue Literary Press
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Bill Green is a geochemist and professor emeritus at Miami Universityin Oxford, Ohio. He is also the author of Boltzmann’s Tomb: Travels in Search of Science and Water, Ice & Stone: Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes, which received the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Book, was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and was excerpted in The Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Arctic and the Antarctic, edited by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Green first traveled to Antarctica in 1968 and began conducting research there in 1980. To date he has been there nine times and has published many articles on the biogeochemical processes in the pristine lakes and meltwater streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     9
Introduction     13
Preface     23
Ohio: West and South     29
Water     48
Rutherford's Den     58
The Map     69
Science and the Shell     79
The Messenger and the Disk     89
Stone     112
The Lake     121
The Sea     132
Hawaii     145
An Invention     151
Whiteout     164
The Mailroom     174
The Gallery     187
The Flume     196
The Cone of Erebus     207
The Moat     217
Merry Christmas     228
Cathedrals     241
North and East: Ohio     249
Geological Timeline     258
Periodic Table of Elements     260
Index     263

Editorial Reviews

John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Book
PEN/Martha Albrand Award Finalist

“[Green’s] prose rings with the elemental clarity of the ice he knows so well.” —PEN Awards Committee citation

“Nature writing of a very high order . . . A joyride for those who enjoy deep explorations of logic, human frailty and the laws of nature.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Brilliant. . . . Resembles at various times the work of Stephen Jay Gould, Loren Eiseley and Barry Lopez, but also Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table and the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the writer of Ecclesiastes. It’s the kind of book that makes the reviewer want to quote whole paragraphs.” —Plain Dealer

“Among his many accomplishments, [Green] offhandedly makes the vocabulary of science accessible to the lay reader. He is at ease in the kingdom of poetry—just as much as he is (warily) at ease in the frozen and eerily beautiful Antarctic landscape.” —Boston Globe

“Some of the prettiest prose ever devoted to the subject of water and lakes and rivers, clouds and rain and fog. A beautiful little book; it will go on the shelf with the other books I read for the love of their words.” —Houston Chronicle

“A lucid, wondrous account. . . . This authoritative yet lyrical book blends science with art in the enthusiasm that Green feels at being the creator of a new understanding where none was before.” —Winston-Salem Journal

“Compelling. . . . This book is not only filled with wonder, but also hope.” —Cincinnati Post

“A magical work of meditation and precise science.” —ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

“Poetic and passionate. . . . Green affirms the fact that science, like art, is rooted in pure imagination.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Wonderful. . . . In evocative language, Green successfully moves between arresting natural history and sophisticated but accessible philosophy of science. . . . With gripping accounts of a number of near death experiences added to the mix, the whole is a thoroughly enjoyable and remarkably informative exposition of the life of a field scientist.” —Publishers Weekly

“Finely honed flashes of pure scientific writing.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Each of the Antarctic lakes studied by geochemist Green is devoid of all but microscopic life. Nonetheless, in this ``minimalist's tableau,'' he finds a surprising wealth of scientific insight. The same can be said of this wonderful book. Ostensibly an account of a season in the field in Antarctica, it delivers so much more by exploring the nature of science in addition to portraying the rigors of research on the frozen continent. In evocative language, Green successfully moves between arresting natural history and sophisticated but accessible philosophy of science. Particularly satisfying is the discussion of how the author, his students and his colleagues came by their fascination with, and began their search for an understanding of, the natural world. With gripping accounts of a number of near-death experiences added to the mix, the whole is a thoroughly enjoyable and remarkably informative exposition of the life of a field scientist. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Green, a physical and geochemist, has a research interest in limnology. As the title implies, his book includes a healthy dose of science, e.g., the physics of the structure of the water molecule in all states; day-to-day methods for scientific data collection; and reminiscences of Green's life with attempts to convey awe and appreciation of the beauty of the Antarctic. The most interesting is the process of the research project itself, but the jumps in text from Antarctica to Hawaii to Ohio, past and present, are distracting. Also, there is no index to go to a particular lake's study, no bibliography to identify his numerous quotations, no map to see where he was. Campbell's Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica (LJ 11/1/92), also written by a scientist on the Antarctic, had better cohesiveness and flow. For extensive collections on the Antarctic or natural history.-Jean E. Crampon, Hancock Biology & Oceanography Lib., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles

Library Journal

Green snagged the John Burroughs Medal in Nature Writing for this 1995 volume. In light of the growing global warming issue, this book, which unravels the geochemistry of Antarctica's lakes, could find a new audience. Includes a new preface by Green.

—Michael Rogers Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

A personal memoir and a fascinating scientific account of Green's seven field seasons spent studying the remote ice-covered lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Contains a map and several informative tables. No index, no bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews