As a promising young scientist, Racoviță was selected to be part of an international team that started out on a research expedition to Antarctica, aboard the ship Belgica. The expedition was led by the Belgian officer Adrien de Gerlache, who was also the ship's owner.
The team left the deck of the ship 22 times, in order to collect scientific data, to conduct investigations and experiments. Racoviță was the first researcher to collect botanical and zoological samples from areas beyond the Antarctic Circle. Belgica made the first daily meteorological recordings and measurements in Antarctica, every hour, for a whole year. The scientists also collected information on oceanic currents and terrestrial magnetism, with as many as 10 volumes of scientific conclusions being published at the end of the expedition, which was considered a success.
The 1898 obstacles
The expedition encountered several hardships. Between 10 March 1898 and 14 March 1899, Belgica was caught between ice blocks, making it impossible to sail any further. It was a difficult year for the whole team. For instance, the crew had to carve a 75-meter-long canal through a 6 meter-thick layer of ice, in order to generate a waterway by which to sail to a navigable body of water. Belgica returned to Europe in 1899 without two team-members, who had died during the expedition: a young Norwegian mariner Carl Wiencke and Émile Danco. Racoviță's diary, published in 1899, makes mention of the difficulties that the team-members had to endure. Photos of the time show that he was hardly recognisable after returning from the expedition. The results of his research were published in 1900, under the title La vie des animaux et des plantes dans l'Antarctique. A year after his return, Racoviță was appointed director of the Banyuls-sur-Mer resort and editor of the review Archives de zoologie expérimentale et générale.
Later life
Emil Racoviță continued his research, contributing to speleology and exploring over 1,400 caves in France, Spain, Algeria, Italy, and Slovenia. He is considered to be, together with René Jeannel, one of the founders of biospeleology. He was particularly interested in isopoda, of which he discovered many. . In 1919, Racoviță became head of the Biology Department at the Upper Dacia University in Cluj. He founded the world's first Speleological Institute on 26 April 1920 there, first as a section which was, however, to function independently since 1956, with professor Constantin Motas. ISER, a branch of the Cluj institute was open in Bucharest. In 1920, he became a member of the Romanian Academy, and remained a major figure of scientific life in Romania until his death. In 2006, the first Romanian Antarctic exploration station was named Law-Racoviță.
Major works
Essai sur les problèmes biospéologiques
Cétacés. Voyage du S. Y. Belgica en 1897-1899. Résultats scientifiques. Zoologie. J. E. Buschmann, Anvers, 1903.
Énumération des grottes visitées, series 1-7. Archives de Zoologie expérimentale et générale, Paris, 1907-1929
Speologia: O știință nouă a străvechilor taine subpământești. Astra, Secția Științelor naturale, Biblioteca populară, Cluj, 1927.