It’s now 52 years since VUW’s 15th expedition, seven men and one woman, spent three months with tents and toboggans mapping the Beacon strata on the edge of the Polar Plateau behind the McMurdo Dry Valleys. These were exciting times for geologists in Antarctica with many areas of the mountains being visited for the first or second time. It was also of international interest as Plate Tectonics had become a serious theory only a few years before, with the relatively unexplored Antarctic Gondwana strata a topic of international interest.
This event involves four of the eight members meeting together for the first time to share views on what VUW and the Antarctic expeditions were like then, with the help of slides and videos.
It will begin with an informal lunch for introductions, and then a series of talks. A separate event built around John McPherson’s book published in 1975, “Footprints on a Frozen Continent”, will take place in the evening at GBLT1 at 6 pm.
Date: 08 Jun 2023 - 08 Jun 2023
Time:
12:00 pm - 2:45 pm
Location: Alan MacDiarmid AM101, Kelburn Campus
Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka
PROGRAMME To join by ZOOM click here
12:00 *Lunch – beginning with expedition members present introduced by Professor Rob McKay
13:00 Prof Barry Kohn – VUW’s Geology Department in the late 1960s and Prof Clark’s Antarctic expeditions
13:20 Prof Peter Barrett – VUWAE 15 – only the rocks were familiar: new job, new people, new part of the Antarctic.
13:40 Video (11 minutes) VUWAE 15 Darwin Mountains (on field life, travel and work)
13:55 Dr John McPherson – reflections on lessons from the Antarctic experience
14:15 Dr Rosemary Askin by Zoom – memories of VUWAE 15
14:45 ENDS
*Light refreshments at 12pm – RSVP acceptances only by Friday 2 June to [email protected]
Download the full event programme and notes below:
VUWAE 15 1970-71 returns – 1200-1445 8 June 2023 with Zoom link
