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Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Oxford Gletscher, East Greenland









Something from the distant past! I was going through the official Greenland place-name gazetteer, looking for some photos, when I came across this: "Oxford Gletscher 71Ø-369 (71°32.8 ́N 25°16.7 ́W; Map 5). Glacier in the south Stauning Alper, draining south into the east end of Nordvestfjord. Named by the 1962 Oxford University expedition, which undertook survey work on the glacier. Oxford University is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities, whose origins go back to the early 12th century. Uranus Glacier has also been used." 

 Dave Sugden and I named the glacier (and it was accepted by the authorities) after we did some rather difficult surveying and ice drilling work there in 1962. We were quite convinced that our ice temperature readings were rubbish, but actually we had discovered that the glacier was subject to surging behaviour. We were young and inexperienced, and did not know how to interpret the temperature anomalies.........  Hardly anything was known about surging glaciers at the time.

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