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Mountains of Madness: A Scientist's Odyssey in Antarctica

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John Long's "Mountains of Madness" tells the story of the author's fossil-hunting expeditions in Antarctica. The book's title comes from H.P. Lovecraft's jarring epic "At the Mountains of Madness" -- a classic novella of science and horror set in the southern continent. The author's references to Lovecraft's terrifying tale effectively convey the splendor and danger of the Antarctic wilderness. Long also writes with a wonderful sense of humour --his warmth and charm draw the reader into a entertaining and informative narrative of scientific discovery and individual experience. This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys stories of popular science and adventure.

Dr. Long's narrative of his expedition to the Antarctic is fascinating and enlightening. One does not need to be a paleontologist or scientist to appreciate or understand the ramifications of the findings made during his expedition. He is also refreshingly honest and forthright with his personal discoveries and the ramifications of those discoveries on his life. If you are interested in the Antarctic, our Planet Earth and adventure, if you are interested in a writer and scientist who is candidly straightforward, especially about himself, this is a book for you!

_Mountains of Madness_ is an account of two fossil-hunting expeditions to Antarctica by Australian paleontologist John Long. In this entertaining book, Long provides details of what it was like to travel and work in Antarctica, describing what he saw and felt, and also providing details of the results of his expeditions. Long with his colleagues made two trips to the southernmost continent, the first time in December 1988 and the second time in October 1991, though the bulk of the book describes his experiences on his significantly more productive second trip.

Long's 1991 expedition was not one for the faint-hearted. A"deep field" expedition - so-called because it was more than 200 kilometers from base and outside helicopter rescue range - was necessary for Long to reach the target of his fossil explorations, the remote Cook Mountains, part of the Transantarctic Mountain chain (Long dubbed the northernmost Cook Mountains the "Mountains of Madness" after a famous H.P. Lovecraft 1931 tale of a doomed Antarctic fossil hunting expedition).

In order to get to the fossil-bearing strata that was the expedition's target (Long was after fish fossils from the Devonian period, 355-408 million years ago), Long spent eight weeks out in the field on a two man, two woman expedition. Arriving on top of a glacier thanks to a ski-equipped C-130 transport aircraft, the expedition carried all of its supplies (including climbing gear, rations, and geological equipment) on top of sledges towed by snowmobiles called skidoos.

Though they had many advantages over the earliest explorers of Antarctica - notably motorized transport and satellite and radio communication - they were still at considerable risk. Only the thin fabric of their polar tents protected them from the howling, super-chilled winds of Antarctica. Frostbite, hypothermia, and dehydration (Antarctica is the driest continent) were constant concerns. Sudden blizzards could produce whiteout conditions, preventing all movement and keeping the expedition inside their tents for days, even delaying the expedition from reaching food caches and causing them to worry about running low or out of supplies. Glacial crevasses were difficult to detect as well as being deadly, nearly invisible dangers that could swallow up people or even vehicles. Long and his colleagues came up with the term "the A factor" to describe that no matter how well they thought they had planned for something, for various unpredictable reasons they lost about one day in four when working in the field in Antarctica, whether it was due to mechanical failure, waiting for someone or something to arrive, an injury or illness, or the weather.

On Long's first expedition, denied access due to events to prime fossil-hunting locales, the author was able to take in some of Antarctica's amazing sites. He visited the Dry Valleys region, a 1,860 square mile region of exposed rock and sand, an area in the Transantarctic Mountain region that remains free of ice and snow year round because the land is rising at a faster rate than glaciers can encroach on it and the scouring, howling, arid winds make snow and ice buildup impossible. Interesting locales within the Dry Valleys include Lake Vanda (an interesting stratified lake, usually covered by four meters of ice but whose deepest layers of water are considerably warmer thanks to a salty and chemical-rich makeup), the Onyx River (the continent's only river, which flows for a mere 60 days each year at the peak of summer), and seal mummies (half-skeletonized remains of desiccated seals, half buried in sand; it is believed that they are the remains of seals that had an ear infection, became disoriented, wandered inland, and starved to death). Long also visited Cape Royds, where he was able to visit Ernest Shackleton's preserved hut, restored to look as it did when the great explorer was there, and an Adelie penguin colony.

Long provided a little history of fossil exploration in Antarctica. The first fossils found were pieces of fossilized wood from Seymour Island, collected by Captain Carl Larsen, a Norwegian, in 1892-1893. The first major fossil expedition was in 1902 by Swedish geologist Otto Nordenskjold, who collected from the western islands off the Antarctic Peninsula, discovering Jurassic plant fossils, giant penguin fossils, and many fossil shells. The first vertebrate fossils from the Antarctic mainland were Devonian-age fish found in rocks near Mackay Glacier near Granite Harbor in 1911-1912 by Australian scientist Frank Debenham.

The main interest Long had though were his fish fossils. Long sought out what had been dubbed the Aztec Siltstone, fossil-bearing Devonian-age rocks that got their name from their original site of discovery that was a pyramidal mountain in a shape that suggested to the geologists an Aztec temple. The author had long been interested in the Devonian period as that was when fish evolution was at is most exciting and in Antarctic fossils as discoveries there could shed tremendous light on fish evolution in other areas of the long gone super continent known as Gondwana (which at one time was comprised of many now separate areas, such as Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Africa, and India).

Long's second expedition was tremendously successful, resulting in the discovery of five new genera of lobe-finned fish, three new genera of sharks, and one genus of placoderms (an extinct group of armored fish). Long details in the book (published in 2001) how he was still preparing and analyzing specimens, including some as yet undescribed forms of lungfish, placoderms, some new types of acanthodians (an extinct group of spiny fishes), and a new ray-fined fish (ray-fined fish are the largest modern group of fish and include such familiar types as trout and goldfish). Long's fossil discoveries also aided in formulating theories regarding the reconstruction of Gondwana faunas from both Antarctica and other countries and also theories relating to the reconstruction of the geographic position of Gondwana itself.

Long enthusiastically described the fossils he found and their great importance. My only compliant was that there were no illustrations of either the fossils or how the fish might have looked in life.