Photographer Page

Robbie Shone

A piece of deer bone carved with slanted lines suggests Neanderthals were capable of creative expression.

EISRIESENWELT (AUSTRIA) At the end of the guided tour of Eisriesenwelt, visitors arrive at a frozen lake, inside a chamber known as the Eispalast, or “ice palace.”

At Buso della Neve, in Italy, the vertical entrance is mostly blocked by a giant plug of ice.

HOCHSCHNEID (AUSTRIA) Retracing their steps as they return from the depths, scientists Chloe Snowling (at left) and Racine traverse the entrance chamber of Hochschneid ice cave. Strong winds have carved scallops into snow deposits. Snow often seals the entrance, trapping cold air inside the cave and allowing thick ice layers to grow.

SCHWARZMOOSKOGEL (AUSTRIA) Some of the ice cones here used to be 15 stories high. Scientists are now racing to decipher the climate history stored in the ice before it melts into the surrounding pools. The eerie yellow glow seen in this photograph may result from light falling on soil-derived impurities in one ice cone.

Melting since the 19th century has changed Kolowratshöhle dramatically. Researchers today stand in the same part of the cave seen in the lithograph. It’s now devoid of ice.

EISGRUBEN (AUSTRIA) Descending a 70-foot wall of ice, Racine (at right) and a colleague pause to extract a sample of it. Racine has found that the ice near the bottom of this 331-foot-deep cave may be 5,300 years old. Ice has accumulated here for most of the past 2,000 years.

EISRIESENWELT (AUSTRIA) From an alcove called the Castle, a guide tells tales of the first explorers of Eisriesenwelt (”world of the ice giants”), the largest ice cave on Earth. One explorer, Alexander von Mörk, was so spellbound he wanted his ashes buried here. After he died in World War I, they were.

Cavers descend into Buso della Neve, an ice cave in Mount Zingarella in northern Italy, heading past hanging snow toward the ice plug that blocks the entrance. They found a narrow wind-carved path through it.

The limestone of the Austria's Tennen Mountains is pierced by many caves, including Eisriesenwelt and Eiskogelhöhle. The entrance of another, Frauenloch, can be seen here.