From one from the world’s most renowned cave divers, a firsthand account of exploring the earth’s final frontier: the hidden depths of our oceans and the sunken caves within our globe

More folks have died exploring underwater caves than climbing Mount Everest, and we know even more about deep space than we do about the depths of our oceans. In one of the top cave divers functioning today-and one of the very few ladies in her field-Into the earth blends science, experience, and memoir to create about In to the Planet: MY ENTIRE LIFE like a Cave Diver visitors face-to-face using the terror and beauty of earth’s staying unknowns as well as the extremes of individual capability.

Jill Heinerth-the first person in history to dive deep into an Antarctic iceberg and head of a team that discovered the ancient watery remains of Mayan civilizations-has descended further into the internal depths of our world than some other woman. She will take us into the harrowing split-second decisions that determine whether a diver makes it back to safety, the prejudices that prevent women from pursuing careers underwater, and her endeavor to recover a fallen friend’s body from the confines of the cave. But there’s beauty beyond the threat of diving, and while Heinerth swims beneath our foot in the lifeblood of our world, she works together with biologists discovering brand-new species, physicists monitoring climate change, and hydrogeologists examining our finite freshwater reserves.

Written with hair-raising intensity, In to the Planet may be the first book to provide an intimate account of cave diving, carrying readers deep into internal space, where dread must be reconciled and a mission’s success amounts between understanding one’s restricts and pressing the envelope of human being endurance.