Intro:

Let me introduce the characters - as from the very first sentence, the reader in introduced with three male characters, Pete Johnson, Harry Carpenter and Claude the latter’s wife, Colette is only just mentioned.
This team of scientists or more precisely geologists are working on the icecap.they are digging a “shaft”.This excerpt focuses on one of character’s thoughts on Harry’s.
After his team mate Claude complains he has been cold all the time, Harry wonders if one day, when he is Claude’s age he will be able to stand.

The great chaste spaces of the Artic and Antarctic enthralled him: the power of the power of the extreme weather, the mystery that cloaked the white geometric crevasse, the spectacle on clear nights when the aurora borealis splashed the sky with shimmering streamers of light in jewellike colors, and the vast fields of stars when the curtains of the aurora drew back to reveal them.

Part1:

The scene takes place in extreme latitudes, in the pole, but we don’t know if it is set in the North Pole or in the South Pole.
I quote line 2 “the rigors of the pole” Line 22 “the last trip to either pole”
However there in a detail which proves the precise location the scene is set in the
North Pole that is to say, in the artic. Indeed in the last part of the except, the narrator mentions the Aurorae Borealis” which are northern lights that can be seen near the
North en magnetic pole, natural electrical phenomena, in the South it is the ‘Aurorae
Australis”

There are no time references but the reader understand thaht the scene is set in modern times, because of the allusions to modern scientific equipment, I quote line 1” a pair of snowmobiles”23 “laboratories” “computers”
What’s more the only detail thaht is given as for the precise hour in the daytime is on line 7, I quote “We ‘ll make it back to base camp “tonight” meaning the scientists haven’t finished their working day.

We can guess they are American; at least