Arthur B. Ford

Arthur Barnes Ford (born  September 4, 1932 in Seattle , Washington ) is an American geologist and polar explorer . Ford led several teams of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in the 1960s and 1970s undertaking geological exploration and geodetic surveys in Antarctica . The naming of a number of geographical objects in the areas examined goes back to Ford.

Life

Ford was born the son of a mining engineer in Seattle and grew up in neighboring Enumclaw . After completing his studies at the University of Washington , he accepted an assistant professorship in geology at San Diego State University in 1958 .

Together with the cartographer Peter Frank Bermel , he led a team from 1960 to 1961 to explore the Thiel Mountains in Marie-Byrd-Land , and the following year to the Pensacola Mountains in Queen Elizabeth Land . In December 1961, his team found the third meteorite discovered in Antarctica . After a brief engagement with the USGS in Alaska , he returned to the Pensacola Mountains from 1965 to 1966. Between 1970 and 1971 he went on a research trip to the Lassiter coast . From 1972 to 1973 he took on the Glomar Challenger at the Deep Sea Drilling Project part. From 1973 to 1974 he returned to the Pensacola Mountains, as he did again between 1978 and 1979. Between 1976 and 1977 he was an exchange scientist at the Soviet Druzhnaya Station on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf for research in the Shackleton Range in Coatsland . From 1986 to 1987 he was a member of a joint team from the USGS and the British Antarctic Survey to explore the Black Coast on the Antarctic Peninsula .

In 1995 he left the USGS and from then on held lectures on cruises to the Arctic and Antarctic. In 2007 he was elected President of the Antarctican Society . The Ford Massif in the Thiel Mountains and the Ford Piedmont Glacier in Queen Elizabeth Land are named after Ford .

literature

• John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , p. 571 (English)