Albert P. Crary

Albert Paddock Crary, 1959

Albert Paddock Crary (born July 25, 1911 in Pierrepont , New York , † October 29, 1987 in Washington, DC ) was an American geophysicist , glaciologist and polar explorer .

He was the first person to set foot on both poles: on May 3, 1952, Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict joined the North Pole and on February 12, 1961, as the leader of an eight-person team, the South Pole . The South Pole expedition started on December 10, 1960 with three Tucker Sno-Cats . Crary's group was the seventh land expedition to the South Pole, after Amundsen , Scott , Hillary , Fuchs , Aleksandr Gawrilowitsch Dralkin in 1959/60 from the Mirny station and Antero Arnold Havola . Crary was widely recognized for his great intellect and skills, particularly as an organizer of scientific polar expeditions.

Life

Crary was born in 1911 to a farming family in upstate New York, the second oldest of seven children to Frank J. Crary and Ella Paddock Crary. He studied physics and geology at St. Lawrence University in Canton . In 1931 he graduated from St. Lawrence as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and then enrolled at Lehigh University for a Masters in Physics.

Crary and his team at the North Pole, 1952

After that, he was associated with Antarctica throughout his scientific and professional career:

• 1947: Assistant to James Peoples in "Project Mogul" as Field Operations Director , an experiment in which balloon probes were used to study sound waves in the upper atmosphere
• 1952–1955: Chief scientist of the "Arctic ice island T3"
• 1957/58: Deputy Head of Science for the United States in the International Geophysical Year
• 1957/58: Head of the "US seismic traverse" over the Ross Ice Shelf
• 1958/59: Head of the "Geophysical traverse W" starting at the Little America V station , over the Skelton glacier to the plateau of the Victorialand and further along the 78th parallel
• 1960/61: Head of the “Geophysical Traverse” from McMurdo Station via Skelton Glacier to the South Pole
• 1960–1968: Senior Scientist, United States Antarctic Research Program
• 1969–1978: First deputy, then director of the Division of Environmental Sciences of the National Science Foundation
• 1961–1976: Member, and 1974–1976 Chairman, of the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

Crary lived after his active scientific career with his wife Mildred R. Rodgers and his son Frank J. Crary III in Bethesda , Maryland .

He has received numerous awards, including the Cullum Geographical Medal of the American Geographical Society (1959), the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1963), the Vega Medal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (1972).

He died in October 1987 at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC

In 1991 the National Science Foundation , which is responsible for the United States Antarctic Program , named a new laboratory complex in McMurdo Station as the Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center (CSEC) in his honor . The Crary Mountains , the Crary Knoll , the Crary Fan , the Crary Bank and the Crary Ice Rise in Antarctica were also named after him .

Web links

• Report on Crary's trip to the South Pole on southpolestation.com (with picture and map)
• Michelle Brown: Welcome to Crary. (No longer available online.) In: polartrec.com. November 28, 2011, archived from the original on June 26, 2013 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Hudson, Edward : Albert Crary, Geophysicist, Dies. An Explorer of Both Polar Regions . The New York Times . October 31, 1987.
2. ↑ Gordon de Q [uetteville] Robin: Obituary . In: Polar Record . Volume 24, No. 149 , April 1988, pp. 147–148 , doi : 10.1017 / S0032247400009049 (English, full text on cambridge.org [PDF] obituary).
3. ↑ Traverse Parties . In: Bulletin of the US Antarctic Projects Officer . Vol. II, No.  4 , December 1960, ISSN  0503-5392 , p. 21–22 (English, full text on coldregions.org [PDF; 18.0 MB ] Expedition Report, Part 1).
4. ↑ McMurdo – Pole . In: Bulletin of the US Antarctic Projects Officer . Vol. II, No.  5 , January 1961, ISSN  0503-5392 , pp. 24–25 (English, full text on coldregions.org [PDF; 24.0 MB ] Expedition Report, Part 2).
5. ↑ McMurdo – Pole Traverse . In: Bulletin of the US Antarctic Projects Officer . Vol. II, No.  7 , March 1961, ISSN  0503-5392 , p. 18–20 (English, full text on coldregions.org [PDF; 21.0 MB ] Expedition Report, Part 3).
6. ^ Albert Paddock Crary, 1911-1987 . In: Arctic (magazine) . Vol. 41, No. 1 , March 1988, p. 89–90 , doi : 10.14430 / arctic1697 (English, full text on ucalgary.ca [PDF] obituary).
7. ↑ Report on Project MOGUL , James McAndrew, US Air Force (accessed December 23, 2017)
8. ^ Charles R. Bentley, Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith: Albert P. Crary — 1911-1987 . In: Journal of Glaciology . Volume 34, No. 116 , 1988, pp. 139–140 , doi : 10.3189 / S0022143000009175 (English, full text on cambridge.org [PDF] obituary).