A selection of images from Jon Gertner’s research for The Ice at the End of the World.

You can click on the images, then use the icons to show thumbnails, play a slideshow, enlarge the images or close the gallery.

“Jon Gertner takes readers to spots few journalists or even explorers have visited. The result is a gripping and important book.”

—Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction

In The Ice at the End of the World, Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth’s last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory. The history of Greenland’s ice begins with the explorers who arrived here at the turn of the twentieth century—first on foot, then on skis, then on crude, motorized sleds—and embarked on grueling expeditions that took as long as a year and often ended in frostbitten tragedy. Their original goal was simple: to conquer Greenland’s seemingly infinite interior. Yet their efforts eventually gave way to scientists who built lonely encampments out on the ice and began drilling—one mile, two miles down. Their aim was to pull up ice cores that could reveal the deepest mysteries of earth’s past, going back hundreds of thousands of years.