A little piece of history

Moving house is a traumatic experience, but in the process of chucking out old files and piles of paperwork, one discovers the occasional treasure.  

I found this -- the raw material for a morse code message which Dave Sugden and I sent to our geology research director Dr Raymond Adie in January 1996.  At the time we were working in the South Shetlands, in Antarctica, and had just discovered the highest raised beach ever found in Antarcrtica -- at 900 ft or 275m above sea level.  This was near Noel Hill on the Barton Peninsula, King George Island.  

This was how the discovery was announced to the world.  Equally exciting was the discovery of a fossil forest of petrified trees, confirming previous research showing that the rocks of west Antarctica held evidence of at least one episode of warm or subtropical climatic conditions during geological history.

I suppose that discoveries such as these lay behind the decision of the Antarctic Place Names Committee to add "Sugden Ridge" and "John Glacier" to the Antarctic map.  We still have no idea who made the recommendations or citations.

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PS. Antarctic names are allocated in recognition of "significant and exceptional contributions to scientific understanding and/or life in the Antarctic".

Residual raised beach at c 150m asl on Barton Peninsula, King George Island.  The highest beach discovered was at 275m asl.

Another high level beach remnant on a washed surface