I recently got a message from the Committee that decides on place names in the British Antarctic territory to tell me that a glacier is being named after me! John Glacier is in the Pensacola Mountains, near the end of the Transantarctic Mountain range -- which effectively separates the East Antarctic Ice Sheet from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I'm actually quite flattered..... although it's many years since I worked in the Antarctic or the Arctic, it's nice that somebody out there thinks that the work I did in the fields of glacial geomorphology and glaciology was of some value in the great scheme of things. The citation also mentions my contribution to education as well -- so I suppose they are recognizing the influence that books like "Glaciers and Landscape", "The Ice Age" and "Winters of the World" have had in universities, colleges and schools. As my colleague David Sugden (who has had a mountain ridge named after him) says, it's something for the grandchildren to be happy about!
My heart felt congratulations Brian! I am very pleased that you are so recognized for all your hard work and contributions. Well deserved! It's what makes your blog special from all the rest! And it's what keeps me coming back to it.
ReplyDeleteLove to have a picture of you and me standing in front of your glacier!
Constantinos
Thanks, Kostas! Yes, a picture in front of the glacier would be nice -- but it's rather large, and very inaccessible! I doubt that I shall ever see it.........
ReplyDeleteMany congratulations, Brian, from someone who remembers you in the Lecture Theatre at Durham University in 1967-8, telling us not only about the "trundling glaciers", but also about your thoughts on how the bluestones arrived on Salisbury Plain. Your enthusiasm for your subject was there for us all to see and it was infectious! The following year I was in your Tutorial Group, which was very enjoyable and relatively informal. Now, all these years later, and I'm still enthused by your love for your specialist subject and in particular its connection with my own first preferred interest which was always archaeology.
ReplyDeleteI am sure you deserve this accolade, and I wish you every success with your continuing work in relation to Stonehenge and the bluestone enigma, from here in prehistoric Wessex, a few miles from the chalk escarpment of Salisbury Plain.
Thanks Tony. Yes, I remember you! Those were the days......
ReplyDeleteNow that I have been out of academic life for so many years, it's good to maintain my interest in matters geomorphological in this blog -- it keeps the grey matter in some sort of working order, even if I do stray far from Stonehenge on occasions!