VOLUME 14-15 JULY NO. 4

HONORARY PRESIDENT “BY AND FOR ALL ANTARCTICANS” Dr. Robert H. Rutford Post Office Box 325, Port Clyde, Maine 04855 PRESIDENT www.antarctican.org Dr. Anthony J. Gow www.facebook.com/antarcticansociety 117 Poverty Lane , NH 03766 [email protected] Anchors Away ...... 1 38th Treaty meeting ends in Bulgaria 5

VICE PRESIDENT A 2016 gathering in Port Clyde? ...... 2 Your editor visits two Washingtons . 6 Liesl Schernthanner P.O. Box 3307 Robert H. Rutford is Society’s fourth Ice Eagles, a coming new film ...... 7 Ketchum, ID 83340 [email protected] Honorary President ...... 2 An Antarctic historical web site ...... 8 The last time at ...... 3 TREASURER Bela Csejtey (1934-2012) ...... 9 Dr. Paul C. Dalrymple “Nuisance flooding” tipping point .... 5 Box 325 A return to Gondwana by ISAES ... 10 Port Clyde, ME 04855 Phone: (207) 372-6523 [email protected] ANCHORS AWAY (AND AWEIGH)

SECRETARY Joan Boothe The Society’s web site and newsletter observe and celebrate present 2435 Divisadero Drive and past events. And they – at least virtually – bring us together. But there’s San Francisco, CA 94115 [email protected] nothing like a gathering. On the next page, our Treasurer asks us to Port Clyde, Maine, for a July 2016 gathering – and coastal delights of the season in WEBMASTER the USA’s most northeastern state. Thomas Henderson 520 Normanskill Place If you like his suggestion, let Paul know. Write or call him (see Slingerlands, NY 12159 TREASURER to the left). If a threshold is passed, planning will start! We’ll let [email protected] you know more next issue. See you in lobster city.

ARCHIVIST Mid-Summer in Maine. Mid-Winter on the Ice. Both can be special Charles Lagerbom for an Antarctican. So also can be the first time one arrives in the Antarctic, 16 Peacedale Drive Northport, ME 04849 or the last time one leaves. Will Silva, who has wintered at Palmer and South [email protected] Pole as station physician, shares such a moment in this issue. “Little actually happens; the horizon becomes internal," he says of a winter at Pole. Enjoy BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dale Anderson, Dr. John Will’s essay. And consider sharing your Antarctic moment in a future issue. Behrendt, J. Stephen People who work in the Antarctic tend to be overqualified for their Dibbern, Valmar Kurol, Dr. jobs and to have energy and drive to match. Two examples appear in this Louis Lanzerotti, Mark Leinmiller, Jerry Marty, issue. Tom Henderson, the Society’s webmaster – as if that weren’t enough – Ronald Thoreson, Leslie has produced films with Antarctic themes and describes a new one here. Bill Urasky Spindler is the Antarctic veteran behind southpolestation.com.

NEWSLETTER EDITOR More than half this issue was written by people other than me. I’d like Guy Guthridge nothing better than to see the newsletter contain yet more different authors – [email protected] bringing different voices, different experiences to our members. MEMBERSHIP A distinguished voice has newly assumed the mantle of our society’s Send check to Treasurer, or Honorary President. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Robert H. Rutford click “About Us” on web site. since he headed NSF’s polar office in the 1970s. Welcome, Bob, to this new $20/yr newsletter mailed. role! $13/yr newsletter online. Foreign $25 mailed. Guy Guthridge The Antarctican Society July 2015

A 2016 gathering in Port Clyde, in mid-July 2016, let us know. We will put more in the October newsletter. Maine? For more about the last gathering, by Paul Dalrymple see the October 2014 newsletter, page 2, and Jim Mastro’s article in the January 2015 Another Mid-Winter Day passed last issue. month. Always good to see one come, always good to see one go. In olden times the Washington segment of our society used Robert H. Rutford is Society’s to gather for a midsummer picnic basically fourth Honorary President put on by the large number of thirty U.S. Geological Survey Antarctican Society by John Splettstoesser members who used to work in the Antarctic. Those Washington-area picnics died with time. In the last decade, however, ancient and honorable Antarcticans have gathered several times for three days or so each at the coastal Maine abode of our treasurer. The first one or two had a hard core of about twenty-five or thirty IGYers; later ones grew to about a hundred and twenty-five, including offspring of Antarcticans. Should we meet again? Those old timers who repeatedly showed up seemed to enjoy themselves. Right now we would love to entice more of the crowd from the 1980s, the 1990s, and this century to join in. Where do we meet? About half way up the coast of Maine, in a small lobster town of Port Clyde, population several hundred. We rent a tent for a seafood dinner, featuring hot-boiled lobsters. We turn a two-car garage into a lecture hall, and Dr. Robert H. Rutford several of our members present talks about their halcyon days on the ice. It is low-key, We are pleased to introduce Robert H. with some attendees having taken up Rutford as Honorary President of the residence in nearby hotels, some in b&bs or Antarctican Society. He follows our vacation rentals of which plenty are nearby, previous Honorary Presidents Paul Daniels, and some in their own tents sprinkled Ruth Siple, and Charles Swithinbank. around the area. For the events themselves, Bob’s distinguished career in there are no charges up front, just a bucket science, government, and academia includes or two on site for donations to help defray Antarctic field research since 1959. More the cost. recently, he was president of the University If this idea sounds interesting, of Texas at Dallas for 12 years before something you might enjoy participating in, returning to the faculty to teach geology and you want to hear more about a gathering until retiring in 2008. He now is President

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Emeritus, and Excellence in Education Russia, in 1994, the Commemorative Medal Professor of Geosciences Emeritus. from the Polish Academy of Sciences in A graduate of the University of 2004, and the Distinguished Service Award Minnesota, Bob has been involved in polar from the U.S. National Science Foundation research since 1955 when as a Lieutenant in in 1977. Mount Rutford (’s the U.S. Army he spent a year in Greenland seventh highest) and Rutford Ice Stream are testing and operating over-the-snow heavy in or near the Ellsworth Mountains. equipment, some of which was used during Bob has lectured on tourist ships the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year. visiting the Falkland Islands, South , After a first experience in Antarctica and the . as a graduate student in 1959, he returned in Whether a person is born a leader or 1960-61 as deputy leader of a University of becomes one can be debated, but either way Minnesota team working on the geology of Bob was one early. I was on the Jones the newly discovered Jones Mountains. In Mountains expedition in 1960-61. Bob led 1963-64 he headed field research that led to the way, drawing upon his experience in his doctoral dissertation regarding glacial Greenland and that prior season in geology and geomorphology of the Antarctica, his strength as a natural athlete, Ellsworth Mountains. In the late 1960s he and a contagious sense of humor. Several of was on the Eights Coast of us worked following seasons in Antarctica for additional study. on various projects; the lessons learned in In the early 1970s Bob moved to the 1960-61 provided a basis for knowing the University of Nebraska - Lincoln to lead the meaning of leadership. Ross Ice Shelf Project researching the glaciology of the Ross Ice Shelf, then moved The Last Time to Washington, D.C., where from April 1975 South Pole Station, 2014 – 2015 to July 1977 he headed the Office of Polar

Programs, National Science Foundation. by Will Silva Bob returned to academia as vice chancellor for research and graduate studies My days grow short as shadows at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. His lengthen. A month since summer solstice, Antarctic research continued as a member of my balaclava and extra long johns go on the multinational Ellsworth Mountains o before a nightly ski. The wind is cold, -20 F Expedition, 1979-80. at 12 knots from grid northeast. The warm The National Academy of Sciences o (-8 F, 4 knots) bright days of summer are in 1986 named him U.S. Delegate to the over. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research I first came here in the summer of (SCAR). He held that position until 2006, my years. A friend had asked as he walked was vice president in 2000, president in me to my car, “Will, how old are you?” 2002-2006, and past president until 2008. “Forty-four.” Charlie clucked, “Right on From 1976 to 2000 he was an advisor to the schedule.” Indeed, my velvet midlife crisis U.S. Department of State on Antarctic was an escape from the crazy world of Treaty matters. American medicine early in the HMO Bob was honored with the University revolution. I had grinned as I chucked a of Minnesota’s Outstanding Achievement Land’s End catalog into the recycle bin: this Award in 1993 and entered on the is not my uniform any longer. university’s Alumni Wall of Honor. He was I step outside into the brightness – awarded a D.Sc. honorary degree from St. full sun at 7:00 pm, diamond dust in the air. Petersburg State Technical University, 3

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Maybe see some halos tonight. Skis on, the community had evolved, 5 years after over a berm and up a Cat track alongside the the new station was completed. The new elevated station, I ski onto the surface population is down from a peak of 260 by the geographic Pole marker that we working 3 shifts around the clock during the placed New Year’s Day. The Dome used to construction years to 150 mostly on one be right about there. shift now. I like the change: it’s calmer, Home from my last tour in June quieter. I know people’s names, at least 2008, I walked along the beach north of the contract workers here all summer. Grantees West Point light. I was sure then I was done come and go. I enjoy the company of the with Antarctica, even done working, but the “geezers” and the energy of the kids. I do a financial meltdown that autumn proved me little medicine, go to the mat to get a few wrong. Back to work, Antarctica far from through their medical qualifications. Today, my mind . . . well, maybe not that far. In folks about to winter returned from a week’s Ketchikan, in the ER picking up a new R&R in McMurdo. Without thinking I admission late at night, I thought about how greeted a few with, “Welcome home.” I’m on the Ice, even on-call 24 x 7, I rarely was sad to be leaving, but don’t want to stay. I called out after hours. like the community and team loyalty. This I ski past the flags at the Ceremonial can be a very funny utopia. Pole, those of the dozen nations that first This tour caps my medical career. signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. Like a Antarctica had a large role. It was a second hockey player tapping his goalie’s pads career; a new lease on life. Fitting, then, before the game, I tap a ski pole gently that this should be the end. Many veterans I against the Australian pole. It bears a know are gone. The corporate and HR stuff plaque, memory of a friend who died here in is deeper. Ironically, folks I’ve known since 2000. “Rodney Marks, friend, musician, my first tour, ones who then had already scientist, 1968-2000.” been in the Program a decade or more, now Early in the season the sastrugi had are at the helm. been choppy; I picked my way along A few evenings ago I thought of how powder paths, smooth, wind-accreted you never know when will be the last time mounds between the frozen waves. By for something: last time visiting friends, last midsummer the surface was smoother. time I saw my parents, last time climbing Some nights, ice crystals refracted rainbow with one partner or another, a lover’s last colors as though a giant had cast gems. kiss. It’s the time of life when there will be With a Canadian bush pilot for the first time more of those. since we’d met in 1997, I asked how he This was my last ski at South Pole, decides whether he can land his ski Twin though I didn’t know it at the time. I came Otter at field sites. Moment of silence. back to find the new winter doc and Henry shook his head. After 10,000 hours physician’s assistant laboring over a very flying in Antarctica, you get a feeling for it. sick man. He would do better at sea level, I recall a picture of him sitting on a piece of we decided. I flew with him down to the airplane on the snow, a wrecked Otter McMurdo the next morning. The patient did behind him. In 1999, he had caught a ski on well, and I got my first ride on a DC-3 – the a take-off run. Good judgment is the result Basler turboprop conversion. of experience. . . . Sudden, but not a bad end. The idea to return came two summers ago, visiting Ice friends at a reunion on Lopez Island. Several were getting ready to deploy. I wanted to see how 4

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“Nuisance flooding” tipping That’s happened. Scott Kulp of Climate Central, a research outfit in point Princeton, , calculates that sea

level rise over the 20th century caused more In years past, glaciologists and others than $2-billion in additional damage in New used a picture showing the Statue of Liberty York City alone during the October 2012 up to her armpit in seawater (a rise of 213 Hurricane Sandy. He says we therefore can feet as thought at the time) if all Antarctic attribute at least part of Sandy’s damage to ice were to melt. Over the years, as West climate change. Antarctica became the main suspect for Remember the old days, when nearer term sea rise (then 26 feet or so if all Antarctic scientists yearned, mostly in vain, of it were to melt), an image of a flooded for folks to see the relevance of their south Florida came into favor. The pictures research to everyday lives? Dig out that old were (and are) dramatic, and they brought picture of the Statue of Liberty. attention and, probably, funding to the discipline. th These days, drama enough (related 38 Treaty Consultative Meeting story, page 6) comes in a new projection that concludes in Bulgaria the tipping point for U.S. coastal nuisance flooding – a foot or two – may come by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign 2050. Affairs and its Antarctic Institute hosted the In a 2015 paper, “From the extreme 38th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting to the mean: acceleration and tipping points 1-10 June in the capitol city, Sofia. The of coastal inundation from sea level rise” (in nation’s President, Rosen Plevneliev, AGU’s open journal Earth’s Future), opened the discussions, noting that Bulgaria NOAA’s William V. Sweet and Joseph Park acceded to the treaty in 1978 and became say a tipping point arrives when increasingly consultative in 1998. “I am proud Bulgaria severe tidal flooding increasingly is among the small number of countries in compromises public works or coastal Southeast Europe” with a research station in habitats. Thirty days a year is their the Antarctic, he said. threshold, and they project numerous cities More than 400 participated from the on U.S. coasts will get there over the next treaty’s 52 member nations and the several decades. By the end of the century, (overlapping) 37 Protocol for Environmental nearly all the locations in the study may face Protection parties, along with observers. minor floods every day – maybe not The focus was on understanding catastrophic, states a 15 May EOS news global climate change, promoting research, article about the paper, “but they still can be and “consolidating the culture of damaging and costly.” international collaboration,” according to a More intimidating is this sentence by post-meeting communiqué by the host. Sweet and Park: “At very high thresholds, Management and operational challenges on such as those of the 100-year event the agenda included work on a multiyear experienced during hurricane strikes, RSLR strategic plan. Delegates worked on a [relative sea level rise] has and will continue strategy for environmentally managed to nonlinearly compress recurrence tourism and non-governmental activities. probabilities in the future because smaller The treaty’s Committee on storm surges will increasingly impact fixed Environmental Protection (CEP), which also elevations.” met in Sofia during the period, discussed making science more accessible via the

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Antarctic Environments Portal sponsored 15 and 16 June. Robin E. Bell (https://www.environments.aq/); better (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) and understanding and addressing implications Brendan P. Kelly (Monterey Bay of climate change for protection of the Aquarium), who have worked extensively in Antarctic environment; and reviewing polar regions, were the featured scientists at guidelines for environmental impact both. Robin, drawing on her study of assessment. Parties approved 18 Measures characteristics and dynamics of Antarctic updating management plans for protected land ice, focused on the unprecedented areas within Antarctica. The U.S. declines in West Antarctica. Observations representative to the CEP, Society stalwart of increased glacier speed, reduced Polly Penhale, was elected for a second term elevation, and reduced mass, drawn from as Vice-Chair of the CEP. three independent techniques, have The Antarctic Environments Portal convinced researchers the losses are real and mentioned above is worth a look. It has are unprecedented in the instrument era. peer-reviewed information that’s “factual, The events – one in the American free of jargon, with no recommendations.” Association for the Advancement of Science An emerging-issues section lets researchers (AAAS) auditorium at its headquarters post new ideas. An interactive and downtown, the other in a hearing room at searchable map displays topography, place the Dirksen Senate Office Building on names, environmental information, and Capitol Hill – drew hundreds each. Both biogeographic regions. David Walton, a had free refreshments; the AAAS one had long-time Antarctic hand, is interim editor. free wine and beer, too. The first was in the Antarctica New Zealand manages the site. evening; the second, mid-afternoon. The delegates held a full day’s workshop on Your editor was born in Washington, education and outreach. grew up in a suburb, lives there still. The As usual for consultative meetings, place has pulled itself into two. When the the final report with recommendations and District recently lost its bid to host the 2024 other information will be on the secretariat’s summer Olympics, organizers said “the site (http://www.ats.aq/index_e.htm) before city’s bad reputation damaged its proposal.” the next meeting, scheduled for Santiago, Associated with Congress, it polls worse Chile, 6-15 June 2016. Parties agreed to than traffic jams and cockroaches, says the hold a special, one-day symposium at the 14 June Washington Post. Santiago meeting to celebrate and take stock AAAS and the American of Antarctic environmental protection on the Geophysical Union (AGU) represent the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the other Washington – people who take pride Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic in their work and want it to be helpful. Treaty. Exceptions exist on both sides, of course. Rush D. Holt, now AAAS’s CEO, Your editor visits two moderating the first event, had been a teacher and a scientist and had represented Washingtons, D.C. New Jersey’s 12th Congressional district for 16 years. Responing to a question about America’s two largest science why the USA is behind in responding to the organizations recently partnered to use polar challenge that Antarctica’s ice loss is research in promoting geosciences to sending, he said that a “concerted campaign political Washington, D.C. of disinformation” stalling action about “Living at the Extremes” was the climate change is “costly and deadly.” title of two events AGU and AAAS Sustained applause followed. 6

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Next day, Kathryn Sullivan, former challenge of the most hostile environment astronaut and now administrator of NOAA, on the planet will be documented in my new talked about the connection between polar film, Ice Eagles: An Account of American events and hurricanes off the U.S. east coast, Aviation in Antarctica. This is my fifth film drought in the west, tornados in the middle. with an Antarctic theme and by far the most We need “environmental intelligence,” she ambitious, covering from Admiral Byrd’s said. “We need fundamental research and first expedition in 1928-30 to the present sustained observations.” She referred to day. I began researching and interviewing science’s “evil twin,” which attempts to for the film in 2014 and will continue this discredit climate science the way the phase through the end of 2015. I expect to tobacco industry tried to discredit science release Ice Eagles in mid-2016. demonstrating smoking is harmful. Her By the end of the year, I will have message for scientists was, “Stand up for the interviewed over 60 pilots, air crew, integrity of your profession. Make sure maintenance specialists, builders, people know where the real science is.” coordinators, scientists and others with a Two Senators joined the group. connection to Antarctic aviation. I have Senator Bill Nelson of Florida remarked that interviewed persons from every American Florida needs to pay attention to coming expedition starting with the 1939-41 United change. “Geoscience,” he said, “informs States Antarctic Service Expedition life as we know it.” Senator Sheldon (USASE). Notable interviewees include the Whitehouse, Rhode Island, said it does not last surviving member of USASE, BMC take a rocket scientist to put a thermometer Robert R. Johnson USN (Ret.), Robert in the water and see that the ocean off his Dodson who was a member of the Ronne state has warmed in the last half century. Antarctic Research Expedition in 1946-48, What comes from events such as and two members of the crew of R4D Que these? A questioner from the audience at Sera Sera that made the first landing at the the AAAS event asked what she might say geographic South Pole, pilot LCDR Conrad to a friend who does not want to believe “Gus” Shinn USN (Ret.) and plane captain what Antarctica is telling us. Robin Bell CPO John P. Strider USN (Ret.). suggested looking at the facts and I have accumulated a massive summarized the main point of the amount of archival film, photos, and presentation she had just delivered. West documents from national repositories such Antarctic ice is speeding its flow into the as the National Archives, the Byrd Polar sea. It is getting thinner. What’s left weighs Archives, and the National Naval Aviation less. Museum and complemented this material Then, she said, the friend has to with numerous personal films, photos, and make up her mind. documents contributed by individuals interested in seeing this story told. A great Ice Eagles, a coming new film deal of this personal material has not been publicly seen. by Tom Henderson The local PBS television station in Albany, New York, has sent a letter of Much of what has been interest in broadcasting a version of this film accomplished by the United States in when it is completed. Otherwise, it will be Antarctica would not have been possible available through my business website, without aviation. The story of the men, www.gwillow.com, where anyone can find women, and aircraft that have met the more information on the film and follow its progress. 7

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I am grateful to all of the people photo sizes were kept small, as the Internet whom I have interviewed and corresponded at the time (including mine) was mostly with for the making of this film. Almost dialup. Plus (then as now) I was attempting without exception, they have been open and to make the site visible to people at Pole; sharing. The greatest joy for me in making they have always had an even slower Ice Eagles has been getting to know so internet access than I. many good people. I had a bunch of old files of articles, Polar Times and Antarctic Journals, History of an Antarctic historical newspaper clippings, reference books, and other information collected by my parents website and myself. And I’d actually previously

created a sort of “timeline” while working at by Bill Spindler Pole during the summers in the late 1980s.

The facilities engineer I was working with Like many folks who spent time in gave me access to the station files, and in the Antarctic in the pre-digital-photo era, I addition to seeing what projects might need came away from my 1976-77 summer- to happen, I created a “facilities timeline,” winter at the South Pole with a collection of which I’d shared with the other people on slides that mostly gathered dust for a long station. That became the original basis for time. Until 1999, when I was contacted by the website timeline. But then, I soon Tadashi Yogi, one of my fellow winterers decided that I needed to include information who was attempting to locate the rest of our about the station winterers. My first goals 21-man winter team for a proposed reunion were to identify how many people wintered on Midwinters’ Day 2000. each year, and the identity of the station Before leaving Pole, we created and manager or officer in charge. Then I thought printed out an address list (these are now that perhaps I could acquire the actual called “dinner lists” based on the premise winter photos and the names of the that Antarctic folks might want a place to eat winterers. and sleep while traveling about the world). It At first the website was hosted on a turned out that I was the only one of us free area provided by the Delphi.com site, whose address/phone number from that list but in April 2000 I decided to acquire a real still worked. It was my parents’ place in a site: “southpolestation.com.” This was back suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. when domain names such as this were So I helped him search out the rest of available free for the asking (as was our winter group (we’d called ourselves the palmerstation.com a few years later). Much “Pole Souls”) using the Internet search more recently (a few months ago) it cost me engines of the time. Meanwhile, I decided $750 to acquire mcmurdostation.com, to dust off the photos from our winter, to although I haven’t had time to do much with share at our reunion . . . or . . . then I got the it yet except put up a home page. idea that I might want to put them up on a One of the early things I had to deal website. So I started laboriously scanning with was how to create a website. At the some of the slides using an HP scanner with time (and still today) many many a triangular mirror device that you put the sites/programs/apps will let one create slide under, and some old software to website pages quickly by what-you-see-is- attempt to despeckle them and clean up the what-you-get drag-and-drop interfaces. I colors. As I started putting the diary of our tried a few of them and quickly discovered winter together, I got the idea to add a they were worthless. They’d create a nice- historical station timeline. Of course the looking page, but it would be full of bloated 8

The Antarctican Society July 2015 unintelligible code and impossible to update. past into McMurdo’s crammed transients’ So I quickly learned that the only way to do hut, Vermin Villa. With that, I had just met things was to write the HTML myself using my first Hungarian, now my new double- notepad (or more recently textedit). For decker bunkmate while awaiting an R4D example, just today I updated some pages flight to Byrd Station for “eastern Horlicks” I’d originally created more than 10 years fieldwork (today’s Thiel Mountains). ago. Hungarians were rare amongst USARPs, The site has continued to grow, and maybe Bela was the first. helped in part by my two winters at Pole in The Club opened and — dinner 2005 and 2008 during which I documented forgotten — I listened to tales of a WW-II all of the extant winter photos and helped childhood under Nazis and American get more of them sent down to be hung in bombers, followed by life under Soviet the main hallway. And I’ve also been occupation of Cold War years. My First helped by the many ice friends past and Hungarian Rule learned was Never present who have shared information, Challenge a Hungarian to Beer Drinking. photos, blogs, and links. Nazi patrols and Allied bombs had to be Perhaps the greatest success was the avoided while growing up in wartime creation of a spreadsheet listing all of the , with subrosa “underground” early South Pole winterers. I must confess I didn’t schooling by parish fathers and nuns. put it together; friend BK Grant developed Postwar schooling under Soviet occupation the original spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is was just as challenging. Bela’s father, as an not available publicly (you can ask me for officer in Hungary’s anticommunist the page/password) but I’ve used it to underground army during 1950s develop a public page covering the winter revolutionary uprisings, was sought by statistics: http://www.southpolestation.com/- Soviet troops, and the family barely avoided trivia/wo.html. Soviet tanks in escaping to freedom in My site http://www.palmerstation.- Austria and then USA in 1956 — com also includes a historical timeline with prematurely ending Bela’s training in winter photos and lists. I’m working on a geology at Eotvos Scientific University of spreadsheet list of Budapest. winterers—a bit more difficult because ships Bela adapted quickly and by 1957 can call there almost year-round, making worked on oil rigs before entering “winter” less well defined than the Pole one Princeton University, completing his PhD in with its 8½-month period of physical 1962. He then joined Prof. Fiorenzo Ugolini isolation from the outside world. (Rutgers University) studying soil formation under polar conditions of the McMurdo Dry Bela Csejtey (1934-2012), a rare Valleys. After a few days exchanging tales Bela headed west to the Dry Valleys and I Hungarian in Antarctica eastward to Byrd Station.

Tracks recrossed in 1969 in Menlo by Art Ford Park, California, both of us now members of

the USGS Alaskan Geology Branch. I heard “My name is Bela! Bela Csejtey!” “the rest of Bela’s Antarctic story.” His (pr. Shay’tay) loudly in broken English short Rutgers field season studying polar ended my doze one late October afternoon pedogenic processes with Fio Ugolini in in 1962 waiting for the O Club bar to open. Lower Wright Valley was made even shorter The door crashed ajar, and two bulging by another close call mirroring his wartime orange duffle bags and blowing snow flew Budapest days. Their helicopter resupply 9

The Antarctican Society July 2015 flight had terminated in a crash virtually on “Gondwana?” That “Land of the their tent, after which Bela and Fio were Gonds,” ancient warriors of central India, awarded citations by Rear Admiral David also is the name of a hypothetical former Tyree, Commanding Officer, for the pilot’s containing characteristic but long rescue. extinct fossil trees and reptiles on all southern . ISAES-XII occurs in the heart of old Gondwana. It’s a nirvana for visiting paleontologists and paleo- glaciologists: before the age of dinosaurs, great ice sheets once covered that now tropical region. SCAR earth scientists last met on a Gondwana continent in 1982 (ISAES-IV, Adelaide, South Australia). By then continental mobility by seafloor spreading from mid-ocean-ridge volcanic activity

generally was accepted. This sea change in the geological paradigm was occurring at the time of ISAES-II (1970, Oslo), when the idea of continental drift was transforming into the theory of plate tectonics, and few still held notions of continental fixity. This progress is inferable from tables of contents and indexes in the succession of ISAES proceedings volumes. The Cape Town meeting of 1963 —

“SCAR-Geology 1” (we may as well label it Bela’s geological reports and maps ISAES-I) — was a learning experience for earned a distinguished career in central and most geologists from the north. Geology arctic Alaska, for which his iconoclastic had not been part of 1957-58 IGY research, views on tectonic development were but that omission was being rectified legendary. Following both our 1995 USGS quickly, and close geological similarities retirements we joined forces for work on the with other southern lands were being Denali Fault System. noticed. South Africans thus invited those northern hemisphere rejecters of drifting A return to Gondwana by ISAES continents to see how that famous Paleozoic

to Mesozoic-age sequence of sedimentary by Art Ford rocks called the Beacon Supergroup and its

Gondwana fossils of the Transantarctic and Mid-July of this year sees ISAES- th Ellsworth mountains matched so well with XII, the 12 International Symposium on South Africa’s Karoo sequence of rocks. Antarctic Earth Sciences, in Goa, India, The best explanation? Movements apart under auspices of SCAR, the Scientific along continental splits, namely continental Committee on Antarctic Research. SCAR’s drift. international symposia in various sciences, Attending were geologists of most usually about every 4 years, track research of the then 12 Antarctic Treaty signatories, progress. with notable exception of Russians. Perhaps 10

The Antarctican Society July 2015 the USSR was boycotting South Africa’s Dry Valleys! Continental mobility is now apartheid; perhaps it was intolerant of South viewed as virtually a fact, after the finding Africa’s extreme anti-communist policies. of the plate tectonics mechanism. Northerners had long considered South Those seminal 1963 meetings were Africa a hotbed of “continental drifters” or held at beautiful Cape Town University “drifter crackpots” (notably A.L. Du Toit amidst lush gardens and lawns under the and his book Our Wandering Continents, craggy, towering sandstone cliffs of Table 1937), a prejudice soon to reverse owing Mountain — whose southern relatives make much to fieldwork in the Transantarctic and up some of Antarctica’s highest peaks. Ellsworth mountains. The Afrikaners We’d seen apartheid’s “Nie Blank” (Whites particularly wanted the northern skeptics to Only) signs everywhere along our travels, see for themselves the varied, close matches but none of us took notice of a little island in rock types and rock sequences showing just off Cape Town’s shore — Robben the same histories of now widely separated Island, where political prisoner Nelson lands. Dr. F. Truter, Director, South African Mandela was held for 18 years’ hard labor Geological Survey, did that by leading a before eventual apartheid ending by De remarkable country-wide field excursion. Klerk’s 1989 revoking of the Population Drift skeptics became convinced, eventually Registration Act. Mandela, along with even evangelical, upon seeing the Karoo’s America’s 1964 Civil Rights Act following sandstones and coals and the mighty riots in Birmingham, marks another Drakensburg escarpment of basalts and paradigm change, a societal one even more related igneous rocks of Natal province — profound than our geological one of all so much alike the Beacon Supergroup continental mobility and plate tectonics over and Ferrar igneous rocks of the McMurdo those early SCAR years.

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