Mm Links June 2014 Week 1

[gen2]

This is your host, temporarily appearing here as 'King Penguin'.


It was 1968 and the British Antarctic Survey were doing their recruiting rounds of the universities. I went to the talk, so something within me must have been interested but afterwards, I decided this definitely wasn't for me. The coldest I'd experienced up to then was the UK winter of 1962-63.

Nevertheless, with a scouting background and love of the outdoors, I had joined St Andrews University Mountaineering Club, regularly spending weekends in the Scottish mountains in all weathers.

As a result, in 1969, I became part of a 10-man University Expedition to West Greenland led by Dr P W F Gribbon. It was based for five weeks on an uninhabited island called Upernivik Island in the Umanak district. The expedition had a dual purpose: to climb the mountains and carry out some scientific data collection. My contribution, along with my friend Neil, was to survey the recession of a glacier by means of a plane-table and alidade. There were no electronics or lasers to assist in those days - in fact Neil later went on to do research on lasers for his PhD.

The results of our survey, along with previous work by others, was published in this scientific journal.
http://www.igsoc.org/journal.old/9/56/igs_journal_vol09_issue056_pg279-282.pdf

The next time the British Antarctic Survey came round recruiting, I was much more interested.

More on that next week.

While you wait, I have provided a once-in-a-lifetime PHOTO opportunity for you to get a small taste of what we experienced.

Ten images will be found here:
http://www.kirkcaldyartclub.org.uk/Index.asp?MainID=18329

[eccles]

Rock climb
Land survey
Laser beam
Honours degree

[gen2]

The game has now closed and the results have been posted here:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Question1342650.html