ANTARCTIC PENINSULA & TIERRA DEL FUEGO BALKEMA – Proceedings and Monographs in Engineering, Water and Earth Sciences Antarctic Peninsula & Tierra del Fuego: 100 years of Swedish-Argentine scientific cooperation at the end of the world Edited by Jorge Rabassa & María Laura Borla Proceedings of “Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 and Swedish Scientists in Patagonia: A Symposium”, held in Buenos Aires, La Plata and Ushuaia, Argentina, March 2–7, 2003. LONDON / LEIDEN / NEW YORK / PHILADELPHIA / SINGAPORE Cover photo information: “The Otto Nordenskjöld’s Expedition to Antarctic Peninsula, 1901–1903. The wintering party in front of the hut on Snow Hill, Antarctica, 30th September 1902. From left to right: Bodman, Jonassen, Nordenskjöld, Ekelöf, Åkerlund and Sobral. Photo: G. Bodman. From the book: Otto Nordenskjöld & John Gunnar Andersson, et al., “Antarctica: or, Two Years amongst the Ice of the South Pole” (London: Hurst & Blackett., 1905)”. 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Box 447, 2300 AK Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] www.balkema.nl, www.taylorandfrancis.co.uk, www.crcpress.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Antarctic Peninsula and Tierra del Fuego : 100 years of Swedish-Argentine scientific cooperation at the end of the world : proceedings of Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 and Swedish scientists in Patagonia : a symposium held in Buenos Aires, La Plata, and Ushuaia, Argentina, March 2–7, 2003 / edited by Jorge Rabassa & María Laura Borla. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-0-415-41379-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Svenska sydpolar-expeditionen (1901– 1903)–Congresses. 2. Scientific expeditions–Antarctica–Congresses. 3. Antarctica–Discovery and exploration–Swedish–Congresses. 4. Antarctica–Discovery and exploration–Argentine–Congresses. 5. Nordenskjöld, Otto, 1869–1928–Travel–Antarctica–Congresses. I. Rabassa, Jorge II. Borla, María Laura. G850 1901.S84 A58 2006 919.8´9–dc22 ISBN 0-203-94569-7 Master e-book ISBN 2006028788 ISBN10: 0-415-41379-6 ISBN13: 978-0-415-41379-4 Contents Preface vii List of contributors xiii Part 1 Natural History 1 EDGARDO ROLLERI The work of Nordic geologists in Argentina 3 JAN LUNDQVIST Carl Caldenius and other links between the Nordenskjöld expedition and recent Argentine–Swedish cooperation in Quaternary geology 25 CHRISTIAN HJORT, ÓLAFUR INGÓLFSSON AND KENT LARSSON Straddling the Drake Passage: A summary of Otto Nordenskjöld’s and his geological co-worker’s achievements in Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctic Peninsula 39 PER HOLMLUND AND STIG JONSSON Swedish glaciological work around the Weddell Sea during the last century 43 MARCELO A. REGUERO AND ZULMA GASPARINI Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary marine and terrestrial vertebrates from James Ross Basin, Antarctic Peninsula: A review 55 ROBERTO C. MENNI AND LUIS O. LUCIFORA An appraisal of the report by Einar Lönnberg (1905) on fishes collected by the Swedish South Polar Expedition 77 INGIBJÖRG S. JÓNSDÓTTIR Botany during the Swedish Antarctic expedition 1901–1903 83 SUSANA B. DIAZ, GUILLERMO A. DEFERRARI, PAULA K. VIGLIAROLO, DON W. NELSON, M. CAROLINA CAMILIÓN AND CLAUDIO E. BRUNAT Ozone and UV-B irradiances over Antarctica in the last decades 95 OSCAR BIANCIOTTO, LUIS PINEDO, NEMESIO SAN ROMÁN, ALICIA BLESSIO, EVA MARÍA KOCH AND CÉSAR B. COSTA Salt-marsh vegetation as biological indicator of increased solar UV-B radiation consequence of ozone global depletion 109 MARCELA CIOCCALE AND JORGE RABASSA One hundred years ago: The Swedish Expedition to the South Pole (October 16th, 1901, Göteborg-December 2nd, 1903, Buenos Aires). Its scientific production and historical implications 119 vi Contents Part 2 Human Sciences NOEMÍ M. GIRBAL-BLACHA Pioneers of scientific cooperation: About memory, oblivion and representations of the past 133 AANT ELZINGA South Polar imaginations and geopolitical realities – Contextualising Otto Nordensjöld’s scientific internationalism and its limits 143 TORGNY NORDIN Open horizons: A trek through Otto Nordenskjöld’s many landscapes 159 MONIKA SCHILLAT Pemmican and penguin-breast, but no pie: Daily problems of Polar explorers during the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration 169 LISBETH LEWANDER To remember and restore the Argentine rescuers of the Nordenskjöld Expedition 1901–1903 179 ERNESTO L. PIANA, MYRIAN R. ALVAREZ AND NADIA S. RÚA Sea nomads of the Beagle Channel and surrounding areas 195 Preface “... The bids started between Bödman and Ekelöf: the “Antarctic” will come before November 20th or not; a meal would be paid in the first harbor to be reached. [November 1902] (…) As days go by, and the season advances, many hopes and illusions fall down, but new ones are forged because the excitement increases. [December 1902] (…) Åkerlundh, who was one of those coming from Seymour Island, told me: “An Argentine vessel has come, the Captain has been in Stockholm and Dr Nordenskjlöld says his name is Martín”. It was an indescriptible moment I have felt but I cannot describe. What I can say is that in such moment I was proud of my homeland, I felt proud to be a partner of those men aboard the “Uruguay”… [November 8th, 1903]1 An international scientific symposium on the expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld to Antarctica in 1901 and the celebration of its centennial was held at the University of Göteborg, Sweden, on May 10th to 13th, 2001. This meeting was sponsored jointly by the University of Göteborg and the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg. All papers and contributions presented in this symposium were published in the book titled “Antarctic Challenges. Historical and current perspectives on Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1903”.2 Otto Nordenskjöld left the harbour of Göteborg on October 16th, 1901, in a vessel named “Antarctic”, under the command of Captain Carl Larsen, heading to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they picked up a young Sub-Lieutenant of the Argentine Navy, José María Sobral, under a general agreement of scientific and logistic cooperation between Sweden and Argentina. Thus, the Navy Alférez Sobral joined the expedition and became the first Argentinian to step on Antarctic territories. When no news from the expedition reached the outer world in more than one year, the authorities noticed something had hap- pened to the “Antarctic”. Most likely, she had sunk. This possibility made the Government in Buenos Aires decide to send a rescue ship, the “Uruguay” corvette, under the command of Captain Julián Irizar, which successfully completed the task on December 2nd, 1903. These facts inspired one of us (JR), who was participating at the Göteborg symposium and during a lovely excursion to the Göteborg’s marine surrounding on board the steamship “Bohuslän”, to propose the organization of a second symposium in Argentina, as a symbol of continuing the Swedish-Argentine scientific cooperation. After an unexpected delay due to one of the most serious political and economic crisis in our country during 2001–2002, the symposium was finally held in Argentina between viii Preface March 2nd and March 7th, 2003. This meeting commemorated not only Nordenskjöld’s expedition but Swedish-Argentine early scientific fieldwork in Patagonia and Antarctica, as well as the present status of our knowledge in the natural sciences in the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, the Antarctic Peninsula and the sub-Antarctic seas. The meeting was sponsored by the Swedish Programme for Social Science Research in the Polar Regions Center for History of Science, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Stockholm, Sweden), the Swedish Embassy in Buenos Aires, the Museo de La Plata, the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (La Plata) and the Laboratorio de Geología del Cuaternario, CADIC-CONICET (Ushuaia, Argentina). The event was named “Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 and Swedish Scientists in Patagonia: A Symposium” and the activities were developed in the cities of Buenos Aires, La Plata and Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego). The Programme Committee was integrated by Urban Wråkberg (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences – Chairman), Jorge Rabassa (CADIC-CONICET, Ushuaia, – Vice Chairman), Ólafur Ingólfsson (The University Courses on Svalbard, Norway) and Torgny Nordin (Göteborg University). The symposium was funded by the Swedish Institute, Stockholm, and the publication of this book has been possible thanks to a grant by the Bergvall Foundation to Urban Wråkberg. A volume of “Abstracts