summer 2021 - vol. 99 no.2
One of the biggest names in British landscape photography, “Mountain Man” Colin Prior is perhaps best known for his classic images of his native Scotland. But throughout his four-decade career he’s also undertaken numerous expeditions into the heart of Pakistan’s Karakoram range, which he describes as “one of the world’s greatest natural treasures.”
Read Morespring 2021 - vol. 99 no.1
If there is a clear message emerging in the wake of the pandemic, it is this: Nature, for one, is asking us to be humble, to awaken at last to the realization that we are biological beings dwelling on a living planet, sharing its bounty with all sentient creatures, all forms of life.
Read Morewinter 2020/2021- vol. 98 no. 4
When the documentary My Octopus Teacher debuted on Netflix this past September, it ushered in a new approach to nature filmmaking, one in which the interaction between humans and other creatures takes center stage.
Read Morewinter 2020/2021 - vol. 98 no.4
With a surface area of 1.7 million square kilometers, the Greenland ice sheet is second in size only to that which cloaks Antarctica and covers some 79 percent of the largest island on Earth. If the ice sheet were to melt—and melting it is in the face of climate change—it would result in a worldwide sea-level rise of 6 meters.
Read Morewinter 2020/2021- vol. 98 no. 4
It is hard to imagine that in our own time so much of the Earth remains unexplored. We know more about the surface of the Moon than the floor of the ocean.
Read Morefall 2020 - vol. 98 no.3
Had the spring field season gone according to plan, I would have been heading back down to southern Mexico with my fellow cavers to continue our push ever deeper into Sistema Huautla, which, at 1,560 meters, is the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere.
Read Moresummer 2020- vol. 98 no. 2
I have been an explorer of the fungal kingdom for most of my life and I was always attracted to that which was forbidden—and mushrooms are strange, potent things that mysteriously pop out of the ground only to disappear in four or five days.
Read Moresummer 2020- vol. 98 no. 2
There is an old adage: An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned.
Read Morespring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1
With an otherworldly landscape forged by fire and ice and largely devoid of landmarks and vegetation, the island nation of Iceland has proven to be an ideal laboratory for the development of new technologies in the realm of space exploration—for it is an Earthly analogue for the terrain found on the Moon and Mars.
Read Morespring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1
I fell in love with Africa at the age of eight, after reading about how Doctor Dolittle rescued animals from the circus and took them back to Africa. I was determined to go to Africa and live with wild animals and write books about them even then.
Read Morespring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1
Walking on sea ice, it is easy to forget that there is an ocean below you. The early morning sun bounces off a soft blanket of freshly fallen snow under an impossibly cerulean blue sky.
Read Morespring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1
In 1842, Charles Darwin published his first scientific monograph, not On the Origin of Species, but rather on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs.
Read Morewinter 2019/2020 - vol. 97 no.4
Some moments seem filled with promise. Thus it was last spring when I received an email from Tom de la Cal of the noted Film Festival Agency, asking me if I would attend a “Global Exploration” summit to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, the first week of July.
Read Morewinter 2019/2020 - vol. 97 no.4
For more than four decades, I have been photographing the world’s largest aquatic animals in the wild, entering the realm of the leopard seal, the great white shark, the Okavango croc, and a host of cetaceans. In each case, I have been able to capture them on film while mingling with them virtually unnoticed.
Read Morefall 2019 - vol. 97 no. 3
In 1977 I was a member of the first expedition on record to navigate the entire 3,038-kilometer Rio Grande.
Read Morefall 2019 - vol. 97 no.3
Santa Elena, Mariscal, Boquillas… For those of us lucky enough to have paddled through these monumental cathedral canyons, which cradle the Rio Grande as it skirts the southern boundary of the United States.
Read Morespring 2019 - vol. 97 no. 1
I am the first NASA administrator to have never seen humans walk on another world. I intend to be the only administrator with that distinction.
Read Morespring 2019 - vol. 97 no.1
Crack! I jolt up to the sound of thunder breaking the silence of the murky morning sky.
Read Morespring 2019 - vol. 97 no. 1
You got lucky. And so did I. That’s the resounding, persistent message of the Earth’s rock record. Our planet’s history is a chain of happenstance, four and a half billion years long.
Read Morewinter 2018/2019 - vol. 96 no. 4
Long revered in Hindu culture as a manifestation of one of its most important deities, Ganesha, the elephant is both worshiped and feared. Killing an elephant is considered an odious crime, made illegal by decree as early as 300 bc by the Indian Emperor Chandragupta, author of one of the first known wildlife protection edicts.
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