Institute of Advanced Studies

Discovering the continent of ice: Antarctica and world history

by Professor Tom Griffiths, Australian National University

Antarctica, once at the very edge of global knowledge and concerns, has become intellectually and environmentally central to the world.  

In the twenty-first century, the continent of ice has emerged as a sensitive barometer of Earth’s health and the site of an inspiring political model of international cooperation. How long did it take for humans to discover that the Antarctic was very different to the Arctic, and that there was so much ice down there? Antarctic explorers originally wanted rock. The ice was a testing ground for physical endeavour, a source of beauty and fear – and an obstruction. But gradually the ice became a primary scientific focus itself and was no longer perceived as just a ‘barrier’. People discovered that the great southern ice cap was vast, deep and had a history. And it also held clues to the future of the world.

Tom Griffiths voyaged to Antarctica with the Australian Antarctic Division in 2002-03 and is the author of Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (UNSW Press and Harvard University Press, 2007), which won the Queensland and NSW Premiers’ Awards for Non-Fiction and the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History 2008. He is Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University.