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Beacon Valley Frost, Antarctica, 1998

"A giant jigsaw puzzle of stone and soil shaped by frost paves Beacon Valley. The age of volcanic ash here shows little has changed in millions of years. 'Antarctica holds the answers,' says geologist Dave Marchant, who seeks clue to Earth's past. 'They're just hidden.'"

—From "Timeless Valleys of the Antarctic Desert," October 1998, National Geographic magazine

Photograph by Maria Stenzel