Spanning more than three centuries of exploration and discovery, this Cornell University Library exhibition invites visitors to trace the history of glaciology. Through rare books, maps, illustrations, and pioneering photography, Rivers of Ice offers insight into glaciers and their role in our understanding of Earth’s evolving geology and climate. Drawn from the library’s Rare and Manuscript Collections, the works on display reveal how glaciers have inspired curiosity, debate, and deeper insight into the planet’s past and future, from early observations of eighteenth-century explorers to sophisticated analyses compiled by modern glaciologists.

Covering roughly 10 percent of Earth’s land surface and storing 70 percent of its fresh water, glaciers are vital indicators of climate change, and their stability is closely tied to global temperature trends. The exhibition highlights the groundbreaking photography of James Balog, whose Extreme Ice Survey (2007–2022) used time-lapse imaging to document the dramatic effects of global warming on glacial ice—becoming the most extensive ground-based, real-time photographic study of glaciers ever undertaken.

The exhibition also explores the important role of Cornell University in advancing glacial research, particularly through the pioneering expeditions led by Ralph Stockman Tarr, a professor of geography and geology at Cornell. His early twentieth-century fieldwork following the 1899 Yakutat Bay earthquakes in Alaska, for example, helped establish foundational methods in modern glaciology and positioned Cornell at the forefront of glacier study.

Featuring locations in the Swiss Alps, Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland, Rivers of Ice offers a rare opportunity to examine the intertwined histories of science, exploration, and visual culture, illuminating glaciers as subjects of intensive study and indicators of a rapidly changing climate.

This exhibition is funded through the generous support of the Stephen E. ’59 and Evalyn Edwards ’60 Milman Exhibition Fund and the Richard N. Sukenik Fund for Excellence in Photography in Cornell University Library.