Antarctic ice thickness sounding, and the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition during the IGY

I try to be careful about expanding the scope of my two topical collections (IGY and North American earthquakes). This is a short explanation of the decision to expand of my IGY collection to include the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955–1958.

I was catching up on reading some old issues of magazines and journals, and I came across an article entitled "How Thick Is Antarctic Ice, and What Is Underneath? Scientists used electromagnetic fields to determine the thickness of fast ice," by Saima May Sidik, in Eos, 104, published by the American Geophysical Union,  22 February 2023.

This news article describes a paper by Langhorne et al. that provided more reliable estimates of Antarctic fast ice (sea ice that is "fastened" to the coastline, to the sea floor along shoals, or to grounded icebergs - see figure below) thickness by using a technique of airborne geophysics, specifically electromagnetic induction sounding. A sensor called a “bird” is towed beneath the aircraft at an altitude of 15 meters above ground level. A magnetic field is transmitted through the ice into the conductive seawater  below which then induces electric currents that the bird can detect. The resulting data are used to infer the ice thickness. This technique has several advantages over previous methods: a wider geographic range than drilling into the ice; penetration of saline sea ice, unlike radar; and more certain estimates than satellites.

Some of the most common sea-ice related features, including  fast ice. The bear provides an approximate scale for this scenario (Wikipedia)

The researchers used the system to survey a 700-km-long section of coast in the Ross Sea, home to the Scott Base, McMurdo, and Zucchelli research stations (see a map of the stations in this post). The area is known for its floating glaciers and ice shelves which are stabilized by fast ice. Fast ice in the region was found to be typically 2-3 meters thick. 

A search revealed that a stamp issued in 2022 by New Zealand's Ross Dependency depicts this method (Scott NZ-RO L177), showing a helicopter towing a bird (see right). This image is from colnect, not my collection. This stamp is one of four stamps comprising a Science on Ice miniature sheet.

Determining Antarctic ice thickness was also a goal of the IGY, although more for the continental ice sheet rather than for fast ice. For example, right after I left off my reviews in this blog of the IGY Bulletin with Number 9, issue Number 10 started with an article on "IGY Antarctic oversnow traverses." It describes three major oversnow traverses planned by the U.S. IGY Committee for the 1957-58 summer season, shown on the map below.

Traverses across the Ross Ice Shelf from the Little America Station, over parts of Marie Byrd Land and the Ellsworth Highland from Byrd Station, and across the Filchner Ice Shelf and parts of Edith Ronne Land from Ellsworth Station.

On these traverses, coring along with ground-based geophysical methods of seismics, gravity, and geomagnetism were used to infer continental ice sheet thicknesses of as much as 10,000 feet (3000 m).

Simplified cross-sectional profiles of the continental ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica (https://opentextbc.ca/geology/chapter/16-2-how-glaciers-work/)

Scott GB-AT 47, my collection

I wondered if there were any IGY stamps that focused on Antarctic ice thickness. Another search in colnect led me to such a stamp on seismic depth sounding from the British Antarctic Territory (Scott GB-AT 147, shown at right), issued in 1988 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58. This was from a four-stamp series which I then bought. 

The other three stamps in the series, shown here, have themes of the aurorae, aircraft, and a Sno-cat.

I also bought this first day cover with cachet including all four of the stamps.

Cover showing all four stamps from the BAT 1988 set commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (scanned from online, since my purchase has not yet arrived).

I decided this Expedition and its anniversary would be legitimate components of my IGY collection. According to Wikipedia:

The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South Pole overland for 46 years, preceded only by Amundsen's expedition and Scott's expedition in 1911 and 1912.

It was headed by British explorer Vivian Fuchs, with New Zealander [mountaineer] Sir Edmund Hillary leading the New Zealand Ross Sea Support team. The New Zealand party included scientists participating in International Geophysical Year [emphasis mine] research while the British team were separately based at Halley Bay.

Route map of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Reed Gallery)

The British Antarctic Territory (consisting of the South Shetland Islands, South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula with a sector of the continent extending to the South Pole) issued stamps in 1963, 1966, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and then annually since 1977. It's interesting that the BAT only issued these four Antarctic stamps in 1988, the lowest number in any one year. A smoothed graph I made of the issuances per year shows a 5-year decline starting after 1983, then a general rise until 2012 and another decrease since then. Whatever significance there may be in these trends is beyond me.

Issuance of stamps by British Antarctic Territory. Data from Colnect.

More on related covers in future posts.

Happy 66th birthday, IGY

Today marks the 66th anniversary of the beginning of the IGY. 

An earlier post discussed the role of President Eisenhower in the IGY, including a video of his speech for its opening,

The Eisenhower Library lists a number of online docuuments about the IGY. That web page also excerpts a quote from President Eisenhower's speech in a video from the post above, that "the most important result of the International Geophysical Year is that demonstration of the ability of peoples of all nations to work together harmoniously for the common good. I hope this can become common practice in other fields of human endeavor."

Apropos of the international aspect of the IGY, I recently bought  my first IGY-related cover with United Nations stamps.

Cover IN245 in my collection

The stamps are United Nations (New York) 49 and 50 in the Scott catalog, representing weather satellites launched by the World Meteorological Organization. The role of the WMO in the IGY was mentioned in a previous post .

The postmark was from the USS Wyandot, dated during the IGY, and the cachet lauds its roll during Operation Deep Freeze, which provided critical infrastructure in support of the IGY program in Antarctica.

As Eisenhower hoped, if only that IGY and United Nations spirit of international cooperation in the name of scientific advances for the good of humanity were more widespread today!

Recent 65th anniversary of the issuance of the U.S. IGY stamp

The U.S. IGY stamp was issued on May 31, 1958. Recently we saw the 65th anniversary of that date. Happy, birthday, 1107! Congratulations on becoming a senior citizen.

I recently bought a cover which contained 5 of these stamps. 

Cover IGY 254 (front) from my collection

Cover IGY 254 (back) from my collection

This cover has several notable characteristics:

1. It is franked with a block of  four IGY stamps (Scott 1107).
2. The block has a first day of issue (5-31-58) cancellation for this stamp.
3. A single additional IGY stamp on the cover was cancelled (using a barrel/football) with a postmark from Quaker Hill, CT, on 7-26-1958. The cover was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. L.C. Maples in Quaker Hill.
4. Typed on the cover: "Carried on USS Skate (SSN578) on first under-ice crossing under North Pole. Achieved 12 August 1958." 
5. The cover is signed by James F. Calvert, the distinguished commander of the Skate.
6. Typed on the cover: "Courtesy of F.G. Weigle", an acoustic physicist who sailed on the Skate. I'm not sure exactly what "courtesy of " means in this case; perhaps he typed on the text and secured the signature.
7. The front includes the Artmaster IGY cachet (Mellone 4).
8. On the back of the cover is a nice cachet noting the USS Skate's polar ice cap cruise during the IGY.

The USS Skate (SSN-578) was: the lead ship of the Skate class of nuclear submarines; the third nuclear submarine commissioned by the U.S. the second submarine to reach the North Pole (8-11-58 during this voyage, after the USS Nautilus had done so in 1957); the first to surface at the North Pole through the ice cap (in 1959); and the first to make a completely submerged trans-Atlantic crossing.

The history of this cover is not 100% clear to me. I assume the International Geophysical Year FDC was produced first. The cover was postmarked again on 7-26-1958 in CT, near the ship's home in Groton. This date was before the Skate departed for the North Pole  on July 30. But the text says the cover was carried on the USS Skate's voyage underneath the polar ice cap. So I don't understand how the dates mesh. Could it have been postmarked before the ship departed, traveled on the ship, and then delivered after the expedition without an additional franking? Or sent on the ship without a postal marking, managed by Weigle, and then mailed to Quaker Hill upon its return (I lean towards this interpretation)? Or could there be another explanation? It may be worth noting that the submarine base in New London, CT, the Skate's base, is only 4 miles from Quaker Hill. Thanks for any suggestions.

I appealed for help to better understand this cover to the Facebook group of the Universal Ship Cancellation Society, and although I got some appreciation of the item, no one completely answered my questions. If any of you, dear readers, can shed additional light, please let me  know.

Belated happy anniversary, Sputnik; Antarctic post office welcomes four new employees

I'm still not up to my preferred blogging speed, but I thought I had better check in. Can I offer a partial excuse that I was on vacation in Switzerland for three weeks, enjoying cultural attractions in Bern, the mountain landscape of the Wallis Alps in Saas-Fee, and the lakeside pleasures of Ascona and Lago Maggiore. Not to mention food and drink in all of those places! 

Allalin Glacier, Wallis, Switzerland

Oops, that trip is fading into the past, so now I also have to blame watching the baseball playoffs. My son Sam and I saw the hometown Phillies knock the Braves out last Saturday. I'm also rooting for my childhood team, the Yankees, so if they meet in the World Series, I'm not sure what I will do.

October 4 was the 65th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite ever launched into orbit around the Earth. This NASA web page on Sputnik is informative. Below is a cover recently added to my collection that commemorates the first satellites of both the USSR and the USA. The postmark date of Dec. 31, 2018, was 60 years after the end of the IGY. It mentions the Belgian ionospheric scientist Marcel Nicolet who was the secretary general of the IGY. I have been searching for a cover signed by him or some other interesting memorabilia related to him, but so far, no luck. Do you have any leads?

My IGY cover #US 245. The stamp is Scott US 4502, issued as a 44¢ forever stamp on March 25, 2011. According to the Mystic Stamp website, this second “Celebrate!” stamp was designed by USPS art director Phil Jordan, working with neon artist Michael Flechtner.

Along with satellite launches, probably the other most noteworthy scientific aspect of IGY studies, and the other area of research that most captivated public interest, was the exploration of Antarctica. The Guardian had a recent story on the four women -- Mairi Hilton, Lucy Bruzzone, Clare Ballantyne and Natalie Corbett -- picked by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust to run the world’s most remote, coldest post office (also Britains's most southerly post office) on Goudier Island in Port Lockroy, off the Antarctic Peninsula as part of the British Antarctic Territory (BAT), a place with no permanent residents. They will also be in charge of monitoring the island’s colony of 1,500 gentoo penguins; hence, Port Lockroy is also known as the Penguin Post Office. Around 70,000 pieces of mail are posted each year to over 100 countries.

The location of Goudier Island is shown with the arrow on the map below:

British Antarctic Territory government website

The post office and the penguins are shown in this BBC news clip:

Below are two of my covers commemorating the 30th anniversary of the IGY, each franked with a set of four stamps issued in 1987 by the British Antarctic Territory (Scott 141-144).

British Antarctic Territory cover (IN 041 in my collection) with stamps Scott 141-144. The 24p stamp is captioned "Port Lockroy" (in a very small font). The cachet shows the Antarctic Peninsula in teal, the location of Port Lockroy, and the general area of the BAT, but strangely does not indicate the full latitudinal extent of the BAT, which extends from 60°S to the South Pole in latitude, and from 20°W- 80°W in longitude.

British Antarctic Territory cover (IN 042 in my collection), registered, with an orbiting satellite shown in the cachet 

While I am at it, my latest IGY cover postmarked from Antarctica is shown below:

IGY cover US 247 in my collection

It is not the prettiest cover, rather misaligned, but  it is postmarked from the Amundsen-Scott IGY South Pole Station in 1958 during the IGY, and sent to Palmyra, Pennsylvania, outside of Hershey, about 25 miles from me. It bears the slogan Operation Deep Freeze. The air mail postage stamp used is Scott C39, issued in 1949 for the increase of the airmail postage rate from 5¢ to 6¢.  The DC-4 Skymaster in the image was a four-engine propeller plane that was used during World War II, for the Berlin Airlift, and later as a passenger airplane and for the delivery of airmail.

IGY Bulletin, Number 9, March 1958 - Life sciences in the IGY

Research workers in the life sciences were encouraged to utilize access to remote regions during the IGY to pursue work in their own disciplines. Marine biology studies were conducted on all IGY oceanographic cruises. The nature of Antarctic and Arctic studies are very briefly summarized below.

Antarctic

    Dentistry. Polar expeditions had already shown dental disorders such as severe toothaches among participants (NY Times, 1956). The Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery requested Navy dentists stationed at Little America and McMurdo Sound to undertake investigations.

    Human physiology. Extreme cold and long stays posed various health challenges to Antarctic personnel. Physiological measurements were to be made, comparing people who worked outside, inside, and on traverse parties.

    Psychology. Stress, isolation, and deprivation were polar psychology (Nature, 1991) issues for Antarctic personnel (and perhaps scientists were thinking ahead a few years to what astronauts might experience in other extreme environments). Records of such feelings were to be recorded via written diaries and voice recordings from workers at four IGY Antarctic stations and analyzed by the Division of Neuropsychiatry, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.

    Botany. The Arctic Institute of North America was to study the vegetation of Antarctica, specifically lichens.

    Animal physiology. Frozen whole specimens of Adelie and Emperor penguins were to be collected and studied for the anatomy of their respiratory systems.

    Animal migration. The annual migration of the skua is one of the animal kingdom's longest, with round-trip journeys up to 20,000 miles. It was studied by banding these birds during the IGY.

Arctic

    Sea ice studies. The physiology of frozen organisms such as bacteria, diatoms and protozoa were to be studied. Interestingly, millimeter-sized invertebrate tardigrades, or water bears, can freeze and survive, as well as be boiled alive; following the same link will tell you that frozen iguanas fall from trees but live on.

Tardigrade (World Atlas)

    Marine biology. Phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other organisms were to be sampled from drifting ice stations. Here is a video and its transcript I missed in my earlier posts about operations on top of Drift Station Alpha.

IGY Bulletin, Number 8, February 1958 - Thule neutron monitor station

One last short article from this issue of the IGY Bulletin.

The Thule (Greenland) neutron monitor station was built for the IGY in 1957 by the Bartol Research Foundation. It was operated by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which is in charge of communications and information systems support for the armed forces. Martin Pomerantz, president of the Bartol at the time, provided the material for this article.

The Bartol Research Institute is a research center in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware (a 90-minute drive from my location in Lancaster, PA). The Bartol Research Institute currently operates 10 neutron monitor stations as part of the Neutron Monitor Program. Thule, which was put into operation on 27 Aug. 1957 during the IGY, is still running.

Thule neutron monitor, oldest of the monitors operated by Bartol Research Institute. The neutron detector tubes are inside the four white boxes (photo by J Roth, Bartol).

As a reminder of what was in an earlier post, the Bartol says: A neutron monitor is an instrument that measures the number of high-energy particles impacting Earth from space. For historical reasons these particles, mostly protons and helium nuclei, are called "cosmic rays." Because the intensity of cosmic rays hitting Earth is not geographically uniform, it is important to place neutron monitors at multiple locations in order to yield a complete picture of cosmic ray influxes. The neutrons are secondary spallation products derived from cosmic rays interacting with molecules in the atmosphere.

The article goes on to say that the Thule station, 1500 miles from the North Pole, was important because it was closer to the geomagnetic pole than any other neutron monitor. Cosmic rays can more easily funnel in towards the Earth's surface through the openings at the magnetic poles.

The secondary protons and neutrons produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays are stable, so they provide much information about the distribution of cosmic rays and the geomagnetic field. The neutron fluxes vary with cosmic ray intensity; on the one hand they correlate with flares on the sun which emit cosmic rays, but on the other hand are inversely related to the solar cycle and solar magnetic fields when high (low) heliomagnetic fields shield (don't shield) galactic cosmic rays from reaching the Earth. Bartol gives a thorough explanation.

Thule has a fascinating history as: the home to indigenous Inughuit; the site of a secret U.S. airbase; the main staging point for the construction of Camp Century; the site of a Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) outpost, with radar in order to warn North America of a transpolar missile attack from either the USSR mainland or of submarine-launched missiles from the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

A philatelic aside on Thule: I was looking at eBay to see if I could find any relevant stamps or covers. I found listings of five 1937 stamps from Thule. Apparently, stamps for regular mail were not issued from the town of Thule (now Qaanaaq) until 1938. The 1937 "local" stamps were privately printed by the Thule Committee in memory of polar explorer Knud Rasmussen (1879-1933) on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the most northerly trading post in the world, the Thule Trading station. These stamps are not listed in the Scott catalogue, but you can find them in Colnect.

Thule stamps, not in my collection (Quora)

IGY Bulletin, Number 7, January 1958 - Polar ice and snow studies

This IGY Bulletin article is based on material supplied by Henri Bader of the U.S. Army Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE). 

The major IGY effort in glaciology was directed towards the study of ice and snow in the polar regions, particularly the glaciers and ice sheets, not only to study ice behavior, but to yield data on climate.

As the Bulletin article points out, summer melt on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is minimal, so annual layers of snow are preserved under later layers, and gradually compressed to ice. Extracting annual layers from pits can allow the determination of a chronology of ice layers, which then allows a time series of data on precipitation, contents of trapped atmospheric gases, volcanic ash, etc., within the ice pores. The first such pit was dug to a depth of 15 meters at Eismitte in the middle of the Greenland ice cap by Ernst Sorge in 1930. This was part of the last expedition of Alfred Wegener, who died during that venture. Wegener was trained as an astronomer, worked as a meteorologist and polar scientist, and formulated the first cogent hypothesis of continental drift.

SIPRE drilled through the Greenland ice sheet to a depth of 300 meters in 1956, and to 411 meters in 1957. By the mid-1960s, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (see below) had further cored to a depth of almost 1400 meters, dating back to about 100,000 years ago.

Equipment for deep core drilling was also delivered to Byrd station in Antarctica in October, 1957. 

A more complete history of ice core drilling done before, during, and after the IGY is given in the 47-page document, The History of Early Polar Ice Cores, written by Chester C. Langway, Jr. for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2008.

A prehistoric record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could be inferred by analyzing gas from pores in the dated ice layers of these cores. These data were critical for developing our current ideas about climate change, including anthropogenic influences.

According to Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory: The First Fifty Years, published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2015, the Arctic Construction and Frost Effects Laboratory (ACFEL) and the Snow and Ice Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE) merged in 1961 to become CRREL.

That publication includes the following entry on the International Geophysical Year, focusing on Henri Bader who was responsible for the Bulletin article:

Henri Bader – the Swiss scientist who helped form SIPRE in 1949 – was a renowned expert on mining and snow, having co-written Snow and Its Metamorphosis, which argued that snow and ice contain geological secrets similar to rock. After the formation of SIPRE, Bader began open pit experiments in Greenland measuring ice strata using Sorge’s Law of Densification, which he had reduced to a mathematical formula. 

In 1956, he and assistants Chester “Chet” C. Langway and B. Lyle Hansen continued experiments with ice drilling in Greenland, achieving 991- then 1,336-foot samples.

At the 1957 International Geophysical Year conference, Bader as a member of the National Academy of Sciences proposed extracting a deep ice core in Antarctica with a pilot project in Greenland. Due to the heat and friction caused by heavy oil drills damaging the ice cores, the CRREL team had to develop a thermal drill cooled with a trichloroethylene-based fluid and a vacuum that removed meltwater. Using National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, the team started drilling at Camp Century, Greenland, in 1961, reached bedrock in 1966, and reached bedrock drilling at Byrd Station, Antarctica, in 1968.

The International Polar "Year" of 2007-2009 was actually the Fourth IPY, following the First International Polar Year (1882–1883), the Second International Polar Year (1932–1933), and the IGY (1957–58) which was also the Third IPY. A number of stamps were issued for the Fourth IPY; I bought two joint postal portfolios of stamps issued by the countries of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the USA to honor the IPY. Below is a scan of the booklet cover, and the stamps from Greenland, including one showing ice coring. Jay Smith & Associates calls the souvenir sheets issued by these eight countries joint issues; in my last post I had suggested the missed opportunity during the IGY for a joint stamp issue.

Greenland stamp showing ice coring, Scott catalog #491 (2007), for the Fourth IPY

I don't think I ever knew that there was an underlying zany Cold War endeavor for which the important scientific work at Camp Century was partly a smokescreen. Camp Century was also an underground military base with its own nuclear reactor. Wired magazine puts it as follows:

long after Camp Century had been abandoned, it would come to light that the US military was proposing something called the Iceworm system: a nuclear arsenal of 600 ballistic missiles, trained toward the Soviet Union, which would be in constant motion by rail under the Greenland ice sheet. Iceworm was never built. The military soon understood that Camp Century was doomed. At best it would last 10 years, they acknowledged, at which point the overburden of snow would push down on the roof, compress the walls, and thus destroy it. [Duh, ice flows and deforms, as is known from glaciers.]

Camp Century was a perfect example of Cold War paranoia and eccentricity: an improbable outpost that was expensive to build, difficult to maintain, and unpleasant to live within. 

I'd encourage you to read the Wired article, which presents some fascinating details about both projects at Camp Century. Henri Bader is cast in a less glowing light in this writeup. One moral of this story is that you can certainly suspect that whenever the U.S. Army or other service branch is coordinating a "research" program, there are likely some military motivations.

This British Channel 4 video summarizes this military aspect of Camp Century, and its environmental impact:

IGY Bulletin, Number 6, December 1957 - Oceanographic island observatory in Iceland

The article starts by reminding us that one of the goals of the US-IGY oceanography program was a worldwide study of sea level in an effort to understand a seasonal cycle of mass deficiency between the northern and southern oceans. (These terms were general, although the Southern Ocean is now the 'newest' named ocean, recognized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names as the body of water extending from the coast of Antarctica to the line of latitude at 60°S.)

The major objective of the IGY sea level program was to obtain more reliable measurements for the values of mean sea level. At that time there were about 500 tide gauges around the world. Distribution of these stations was uneven, so more than 200 new stations were established for the IGY as part of the Island Observatory Program, with an emphasis on island stations and the southern hemisphere coastlines.

So many stations are useful because sea level rise has a global and a local component, as pointed out here by NOAA, so the geographically diverse measurements can be used to disentangle those effects.

The article mentions that a complication for the station in Grindavik, Iceland, was the 12 foot variation in daily sea level due to the tides, similar to the infamous 50' tidal variation for the Bay of Fundy. Wow, I didn't realize I was so close to there when I went to Acadia National Park in September.

Th tidal gauge record from Reykjavik, Iceland (below) below is graphed from the IGY era to the present, showing the linear trend of 2.35 mm/year as well as monthly fluctuations.

Reykjavik tidal gauge for the last 40 years

The article also states that it is difficult to separate the effects of global sea level change due to thermal expansion of ocean water and due to addition of extra water to the ocean basins, so temperature profiles of the ocean water were collected at stations to depths of 1000'. Rising global temperatures will cause thermal expansion of ocean water, and also cause glaciers to melt and feed more water into the ocean basins.

This NOAA map shows the distribution of tide gauges around the U.S. These each record local relative sea level (RSL) trends, a combination of "eustatic" (global) sea level rise and the local vertical land motion. The global sea level trend has been recorded by satellite altimeters since 1992. Global sea level rose at a rate of about 1.7 mm/year during the 20th century (NOAA), but 3 mm/year since 1992 (NOAA). This latter rate would lead to an additional increase of 10" by the end of this century.

The tides are due to the gravitational attractions of the Moon and Sun, the former being twice as great as the latter due to the Moon's closer distance to Earth. NASA explains the tides with some helpful animations. Not only is sea level affected by tides with a diurnal or semi-diurnal (or mixed) periodicity as the Earth rotates beneath the Moon, but so is the solid Earth.

By the way, my second summer job, in 1970, was with the U.S. Weather Bureau in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Weather Bureau had become part of the Environmental Science Services Administration when that agency was formed in 1966. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on October 1, 1970 (soon after I worked there), with the enactment of the historic National Environmental Policy Act. At that time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service.

I remember my work there as not being very instructive or productive, because I had few useful responsibilities. A couple of the older chaps (and I think all the scientists were men) were a bit hostile to me because of my long hair and presumed (and correctly so) liberal political persuasion. I did have an ongoing discussion with one of the fellows, Red, which left our opinions mostly unchanged but at least left us sharing mutual respect for each other as generally friendly and thoughtful individuals.

IGY Bulletin, Number 6, December 1957 - Arctic Ocean submarine ridges

I'm hoping to push through the December 1957 issue of the IGY Bulletin before I start some holiday travel later this week. I know, not the best time to go traveling, but planning was made before Omicron came along, and everyone in the party is fully vaccinated and boosted. So crossing my fingers (and being as careful as I can) on this one.

First, some back ground on ocean ridges, the theme of this article. The bathymetric mapping of the sea floor took off in the late 1800s, first with soundings by lowering weighted lines to the sea bottom, then by sonar in the 1920s, and then by multibeam and sidescan sonar in the 1960s. Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp's Physiographic Map of the North Atlantic in 1957, the year of the IGY, was the first map that enabled the general public to visualize what the ocean floor really looked like. Twenty years later they produced the first complete world map of the ocean floors.

Heezen and Tarp map of the sea floor, 1977 (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)

Marie Tharp's contributions were downplayed early in her career due to the sexism prevalent in the Earth sciences. Belatedly, Tharp became recognized for her accomplishments. Twenty years further on, in 1997, the Library of Congress named her as one of the four greatest cartographers of the 20th century. 

The diagram below illustrates major features of the sea floor. There is no scale in this schematic illustration, but the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system rises about 3 km above the ocean floor, and is 1000-1500 km wide.

Major features of the sea floor (University of Puerto Rico)

Understanding the origin of the mid-ocean ridges became key to the theory of sea-floor spreading in the early 1960s, which in turn became incorporated into the theory of plate tectonics later that decade. 

The IGY Bulletin article starts with:

On August 12, 1957, geophysicists on IGY Drifting Station A, in the Arctic Ocean, reported that the ice floe on which the station is established had floated over a submarine ridge, or mountain range, rising more than 5000 feet above the ocean floor.

The ridge was inferred from a series of 13 seismic depth soundings (yielding shorter echo times from the elevated ridge for the seismic waves) and gravity measurements (higher values due to rock in the ridge displacing lower density ocean water). The fact that the ridge feature could be observed over several days of drifting suggested that it was fairly extensive.

From the IGY Bulletin article

The article stated that the topographic extent of the discovered feature (shown by the series of dots left of center in the above figure) was uncertain, but it seemed to parallel a previously known feature, the Lomonosov Ridge (discovered in 1948, and now the focus of an important geopolitical dispute).

By comparing with the contemporary map of the Arctic sea floor below, and as also stated in this article, the feature discovered in 1957 was what is now recognized as Alpha Ridge.

Arctic Ocean seafloor features map. Note the orientation is not the same as for the preceding map.

The Bulletin article continues by discussing the implications of sea floor bathymetry for better understanding water circulation in the Arctic Ocean.

In prepping for this post, I bought the only stamp I could find showing a mid-ocean ridge, from Ascension island. It has its own listings in the Scott catalogs, but is part of the British Crown Colony of St. Helena. As the map on the stamp shows, Ascension as well as St. Helena are on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system. The stamp was issued in 1980 to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the founding of The Royal Geographic Society.

Ascension stamp, Scott #268 (not my stamp, which has yet to arrive)

I visited three islands of the beautiful Azores chain in 2016, and had a great time. All these islands, also on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system, are largely volcanic, and I visited several great volcanic spots.

Sete Cidades volcano crater lakes, island of São Miguel, Azores

IGY Bulletin, Number 5, November 1957 - Preliminary report on rockoon firings in the Arctic; Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum; Matthew Henson

Ack, my summaries of November 1957 IGY Bulletin articles have now slipped into December. Plus, the articles are continuing to repeat themes, as rockoons were discussed in another post less than a month ago. So I'll be quick about the rockoons this time, and add some other Arctic thoughts.

The article states that during a 10-day period in August 1957, 18 rockoons (balloon-launched rockets) were flown as part of the US-IGY program by scientists from the University of Iowa, under the direction of James Van Allen. The flights were made from the deck of the USS Plymouth Rock, roughly within the Arctic-subarctic zone outlined in red on the map below. A table of all 18 flights is included in the article. Seven flights recorded data throughout the balloon ascent and rocket flight portion of the missions.

Approximate map area of rockoon launches (Google Earth)

The Hawk sounding rockets were launched at balloon altitudes of about 75,000 feet, or 15 miles, reaching as high as 132 km, or about 75 miles. This took them up to the altitudes of the aurorae, in the thermosphere/ionosphere.

Scientific objectives included measurements of the geomagnetic field, cosmic ray intensities, and of electrical currents. One of the instruments flown was a proton precession magnetometer. I used such a magnetometer, the Geometrics model G856, in my (ground-based) teaching and research at archaeological and geologic sites during my career.

Since we are now "in the Arctic," I'll take the opportunity to mention a couple of "Arctic experiences" I had during a trip to the Northeast in late September. I took my first airplane flight of the covid era from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine. On my way to Acadia National Park, I visited the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. James Tanzer, Museum Outreach Coordinator, was kind enough to arrange my visit, these days by appointment only as campus buildings are generally closed to those from outside the Bowdoin community. The museum 

Hubbard Hall, housing the Arctic Museum

"is dedicated entirely to all things Arctic. It is named after Arctic explorers and Bowdoin graduates Robert E. Peary (Class of 1877) and Donald B. MacMillan (Class of 1898)." Peary (1856 – 1920) was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for leading an expedition in 1909 that claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic North Pole, although he might have bean beaten by Frederick Cook. The other namesake of the Museum, Donald MacMillan, received a bachelor's degree in geology from Bowdoin. He made over 30 expeditions to the Arctic in his 46-year career, traveling over 300,000 miles.

The coolest artifacts in the museum were Peary's notes and telegram about reaching the pole:

It was also neat to see some of the surveying and scientific instruments used on the expeditions. Just like what would be done for the IGY 50 years later, temperatures and barometric pressures were measured as key weather variables.

Thermometer

Barometer

Barometric and thermometric data

I have a first day cover for  the 50th anniversary of Peary's expedition to the North Pole. The 1959 stamp (Scott #1128) shows Peary’s expedition with a team of dog sleds traveling over the ice, and the USS Nautilus’ 1957 nuclear-powered submarine journey below the ice, two rather different ways of reaching the North Pole. The postmark is from Cresson, Pennsylvania, where Peary was born.

First day cover with Scott #1128 for the stamp. The cover is  US 194 in my collection.

I appreciated learning more about Matthew Henson at the Museum. Henson (1866 - 1955) accompanied Peary on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years spending a total of 18 years on expeditions together. (Wow, that's half the lifetime of my marriage!)  He was part of the 1908–1909 expedition that claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson said he was the first of their party to reach the pole. Henson, being Black, got only subdued and belated kudos for his accomplishment. I

There is a small virtual exhibit at the Museum on Henson. Sadly, Henson did not live to see the IGY. But there is a picture of him from the virtual exhibit with Pres. Eisenhower, our IGY president, in 1954:

Matthew and Mrs. Henson with President Eisenhower at The White House; age 88 (Bowdoin College)

I ran into Henson again when I spent a night on the same trip in Mystic, Connecticut, and visited the Mystic Seaport Museum. Although he does not show up when you google his name through the Museum's website, there was a panel on him, shown below. It pointed out that the shipbuilding community near Mystic had sent many whaling vessels into the Arctic in the mid-1800s, before Henson went there for a different reason.

Matthew Henson panel at Mystic Seaport Museum

In my collection, I also have the USPS Souvenir Page (Scott catalog SP752) shown below, with four 22¢ stamps issued in 1986 showing Arctic explorers: Elisha Kane (Scott #2200), Adolphus Greely (Scott #2201), Vilhjalmur Stefansson (Scott #2202), and Robert Peary and Matthew Henson (Scott #2203) sharing the fourth stamp. Henson had to share a stamp, but at least he got one. 

USPS souvenir page (SP267) on Polar Explorers, including the stamp (Scott #2203) with Matthew Henson and Robert Peary

The block of four stamps together has its own designation in the Scott catalog as #2223a.

According to the Scott catalog, these souvenir pages "are post office new-issue announcement bulletins, including an illustration of the stamp's design and informative text." Although the stamps are individually listed in the regular part of the catalog, the souvenir pages are indexed separately as "back of the book" items, found further back in the Scott catalog in the same way as airmail stamps are, and bearing the extra SP prefix.