Kjove Land and the 134m marine limit

 

I have been doing a lot of reading recently on the glacial chronology of East Greenland, and I'm staggered to find that the 134 m marine limit in Kjove land (near the exit of Nordvestfjord into the wider gulf of Scoresby Sund) has survived the passage of time and is still accepted as accurate.  As is the 101 m shoreline associated with a short-lived glacier advance.

I've been reading a string of recent articles about the marine features, glacial succession and climate changes in the area, written by researchers with helicopter backup and access to the full range of modern surveying instruments, GPS gadgets and up to date digital maps ---  and all the checks done by them have shown that we were pretty well spot on. When Dave Sugden and I were at work in 1962 all our equipment had to be man-hauled,  and the only equipment at our disposal was a theodolite, a long tape and a surveying measuring staff  -- and a pencil and notebook.  We didn't even have an electronic calculator for working out our measurements.  Neither did we know where msl was located -- we had to do our own tidal observations and work that out for ourselves.

I'm not sure that we can say that "the old ways are best" -- because we spent hundreds of hours just walking and humping heavy gear around the place in very rough terrain -- but in terms of "job satisfaction", looking back on it, it  was not too bad.......