Australia’s most ambitious over-snow Antarctic expedition in a generation is under way. In this edited extract from Griffith Review, meet the man searching for prehistoric ice to unlock the mysteries of our planet
The photo that pops up with his periodic tweets is something of a non sequitur. Joel Pedro – “Lead Project Scientist, Million Year Ice Core Project, Australian Antarctic Division” – sits at the wheel of a Massey Ferguson tractor that’s seen better days, flannel shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow. Behind him there’s a glimpse of pale acres of rye grass – fodder for cattle grazed on his late grandmother’s property in Walpole, on the Western Australian south coast.
Click through to his profile and the farmyard shot is juxtaposed with one rather more in keeping with his polar credentials. Here he’s perched on the wide tracks of a beast of an all-terrain vehicle in a dazzling icescape. Swaddled in a goose-down jacket, he’s smiling broadly behind a frosty beard and wraparound shades.
