Movements

Continents Drifting Apart

Following advances in the science of plate tectonics in the 1960s, it is now accepted that continents have formed and broken up many times in earth’s history.  The alignment of the present continents began about 250 million years ago with the breakout of supercontinent Pangea into northern and southern parts, Laurasia and Gondwanaland.  About 180 million years ago, Gondwana began rifting and drifting into the various southern continents, including Antarctica.  Antarctica was finally separated from Australia and South America by the Southern Ocean about 25 to 40 million years ago and has been largely iced over for 15 million years.  Today’s continents are still moving in the range of inches per year.  Some scientists estimate that in 250 million years, the earth will again be a supercontinent.

Our jazz influenced track presents a mini history of continental drift, with various solo instruments representing continents breaking away, including a quiet interlude for the formation of new oceans.

Continents Drifting Apart​

Surfing the Antarctic Wave

Antarctica has been in the southern polar region since its Pangean days, for 280 million years.  90 million years ago the west coast of Antarctica had a temperate swampy rainforest, with mean temperatures of 54º F (12º C) and water temperatures reaching 68º F (20º C).  The world had no ice caps and sea levels were hundreds of feet higher.  Even though there were 4-month polar nights at the poles, they were as warm as at the equator.  Coniferous forests were dominant and small reptiles were common in Antarctica, including a few types of dinosaurs.

This surfing-style track is a playful portrayal of that warmer time.

Surfing the Antarctic Wave​

Samba Antarctica

In a 2012 report, drill cores from eastern Antarctica’s seabed containing pollen and spores from 46 to 53 million years ago showed that tropical and semi-tropical vegetation covered the coastal regions at that time.  Winter temperatures may have been more than 50º F (10º C) and the interior climate would have been colder, supporting a temperate rainforest.

This samba is a dance track for a prehistoric tropical Antarctica.

Samba Antarctica​

Finding Endurance

Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-17 Imperial Transantarctic Expedition intended to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound.  Instead, Shackleton and his crew on the Endurance were stranded in heavy sea ice in the Weddell Sea for over 10 months and never reached continental land.  Eventually the ship was crushed by the ice and sank in November 1915.  The crew survived for nearly 6 months on the ice floes until the spring melt allowed them to reach Elephant Island with their three lifeboats.  The subsequent journey by Shackleton and five others on the open-boat, James Caird, to the island of South Georgia, became an iconic tale of courage, seamanship and good luck.  Shackleton eventually rescued all the stranded men on Elephant Island in August 1916.

In March 2022, after a search that began in 2019, an international high-tech expedition located and filmed the intact wreck of the Endurance, through the use of underwater submersibles, at a depth of 1.9 miles (3 km) on the floor of the Weddell Sea.

The Weddell Sea is a difficult, icy region and is one of the world’s few ocean areas with deep water masses that is a contributor to the global ocean conveyor belt system.  The sea was named after James Weddell, a British captain and sealer.  Of note, following his 1822-24 expedition, he wrote in his post expedition book that one of the crew solemnly declared having seen a reddish humanoid mermaid/merman with long green hair, sitting on a coastal rock.

Our guitar track imagines a deep, nebulous, undisturbed underwater world as seen through the submersible’s camera lens.

In a completely alternate interpretation, this track pays homage to the brave people of Eastern Europe today, finding their own endurance through the utter devastation of bombs and in refugee camps.

Finding Endurance​

Flying Saucers Over Antarctica​

Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) reports have been recorded from the ancient eras to the present day.  Since the 1940s, the international reporting frequency has ramped up and ufology has become part of mainstream culture and study, both private and governmental.  The subject has been painted with various shades of seriousness, conspiracy theories, cover-ups and triviality.  Antarctica might be an ideal place for UFOs to stay hidden.  Reports of UFOs in Antarctica have so far turned out to be of weather balloons, shadows, deposits of water or snow features.

Here we imagine some UFO music, including theremin and backwards guitar, for flying in a saucer over Antarctic icescapes.

Flying Saucers Over Antarctica​

The Kind Witch of Antarctica

Many parts of the world have developed their own legends, mythological figures and stories from the distant past.  With no indigenous human culture, Antarctica has no cultural history, mythology, or equivalents of centaurs, mermaids, Yetis or Loch Ness monsters.

In this track we imagine our own mythology of an Antarctic witch, who we see on the side of good, rather than evil.

The resulting peaceful track reflects this ethereal, benevolent persona.
The Kind Witch of Antarctica​

Dinosaur Extinction Blues

Dinosaur bones and fossils were first found in Antarctica in the 1980s in the northern parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in the Beardmore Glacier area of the Transantarctic Mountains.  Species represented included herbivores, carnivores, marine and flying reptiles, dating from 190 to 66 million years ago.  Dinosaurs were a very diverse group of reptiles, believed to have first appeared globally about 245 million years ago and became extinct 66 million years ago. The main reason is thought to be a large asteroid collision with the earth in the present-day Gulf of Mexico area.  The resulting climate and atmospheric changes caused the earth’s fifth mass extinction, destroying three quarters of plant and animal life.  Polar areas of the time were not spared.  In 2014, fossil remains of a giant penguin from about 37 million years ago, believed to have been over 6 feet in height and weighing 250 lbs., were found on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Our track imagines stomping along with dinosaurs in a warmer, swampier Antarctica.

Dinosaur Extinction Blues​

Hollow Earth

The idea of a hollow earth, with its underworld, dates back to the Ancient Greek era and has pervaded various cultural and religious mythologies through the ages.  By the 1800s these ideas had largely become pseudoscience but continued to be popularized through various adventure novels.  Antarctica has had its share of such fantasies through its own iconic genre fiction.  The journeys from the Ice to hollow earth have been populated by dinosaurs, monsters and human giants descended from ancient races.  Even highly decorated American polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd was alleged by conspiracy theorists to have found holes in the poles to inner worlds.

Our guitar track twists and twirls through to a hollow earth beneath Antarctica.

Hollow Earth

Where Goes Antarctica?

In Antarctica, many glaciers and ice shelves are melting, species overfishing is a concern and the threat to the environment continues from potential mineral and hydrocarbon prospecting by aggressive nations.  Is the rapidly warming world beyond hope or is there a chance humanity won’t destroy itself along with the earth with our unbounded material expansion?  Are we heading to another mass extinction, this time of our own doing – myth or reality?

In a jazzy style, this track offers a mood of hesitancy and questioning about what we’re doing to ourselves and the resulting fate of the world.

Where Goes Antarctica?

Credits

Musical compositions by Valmar Kurol & Michael Stibor © 2022

Samba Antarctica composed by Valmar Kurol and Carole Desmarteau © 2022

The Kind Witch of Antarctica composed by Carole Desmarteau © 2022

Where Goes Antarctic? composed by Carole Desmarteau © 2022

Synthesizer & programming, guitars, arrangements and mixing by Michael Stibor. www.michaelstibor.com

Trumpet solos on Continents Drifting Apart by João Sousa (Portugal)

Mastered by Richard Addison, Trillium Mastering (Montreal, Canada) www.trilliumsound.com

Photographs and track notes by Valmar Kurol

Album graphics by Michael Valcenat

Produced by Valmar Kurol

www.mysteriesofantarctica.com