Blizzards and Broken Grousers

A rare personal account of a scientific journey, this memoir details one year of field operations in 1970–71, acquiring ice thickness data with radar, gravity measurements, and magnetometer measurements in Antarctica. Compiled from official logs, personal papers, and memories, Blizzards and Broken Grousers reminds us of the pioneering spirit of geophysics in the time when field operations reached the ends of the earth and exploration was not confined to offices and computer processing systems. This book provides a detailed account of the author’s Antarctic experience in a time before GPS, satellite communications, internet, and even links to Antarctica by air. Moreover, although it was not obvious at the time, the data collected from this work provide the underpinnings of the currently accepted theory on the movement of glacial icecaps, including models of ice behavior and the interaction of ice and climate that have been used extensively in assessments of future climate change.