Born 1908,
Kent, England
Vivian Fuchs was born in the English county of Kent, the son of a farmer of German origin. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he studied geology. Between the years 1929 and 1938 he went on four geological expeditions to East Africa. During World War II he was a major in the British army and served in West Africa and Germany and received several medals for bravery.
After the war, in 1947, Fuchs was put in charge of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. The Dependencies were a group of islands near Antarctica, and included Britain’s claim to part of the mainland of Antarctica. After setting up scientific bases on the Graham Peninsula, Fuchs was marooned in one of them for a year when his supply ship could not land because of weather conditions. During that time he conceived of a plan to fulfill the dream of Ernest Shackleton (see entry), the British explorer who had attempted to cross Antarctica from coast to coast.
Fuchs’s plan was carried out by the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition as part of the activities of the International Geophysical Year in 1957-58. The plan involved two parties: led by Fuchs, one party left Shackleton Base on the Filchner Ice Shelf on November 24, 1957; in the meantime, a New Zealand team headed by Edmund Hillary (see entry) was establishing food and fuel supply bases starting from McMurdo Sound on the other side of the continent.
Fuchs made slow progress in very bad conditions, with his heavy new Sno-Cat and Weasel vehicles frequently getting stuck in the snow. The British party crossed a very dangerous region of crevasses at the place where the ice-shelf joined the Antarctic continent. Dog teams had to be sent ahead to find a safe route for the tractors, which were always in danger of falling into one of the crevasses. Furthermore, Fuchs’s party was engaged in making seismic and gravity soundings all along their route, in order to determine the nature of the land underneath the Antarctic ice cap. This work was extremely slow but it was also extremely valuable: for example, it showed that the ice reached depths of 9,000 feet and that there was a great valley at the South Pole. Establishing this information had been one of the main goals of the International Geophysical Year.
While Fuchs was engaged in this work, Hillary’s team made much faster progress. Originally, the New Zealand team had intended to go only as far as a place called Depot 700, which was 500 miles from the Pole, but Hillary continued on and reached the South Pole on January 3, 1958. He had made such good progress that he saw the possibility of completing the crossing himself. Early in January 1958, he radioed to London headquarters and to Fuchs that Fuchs should turn back in the face of the coming winter. Fuchs refused, however, and continued on to the South Pole, which he reached on January 19, 1958. He was greeted enthusiastically by Hillary and the Americans stationed at the Amundsen-Scott Base.
As winter approached, Fuchs and Hillary continued on their very difficult trek from the South Pole. They reached McMurdo Sound on March 2, 1958. It had taken Fuchs 90 days to cover the 2,180 miles from one side of Antarctica to the other. When they reached Scott Base in Victoria Land, Fuchs received word that he had been knighted as a result of his accomplishment. He and Hillary collaborated on writing the story of the expedition in The Crossing of Antarctica, which was published in 1958. That same year Fuchs was appointed director of the British Antarctic Survey; in 1959 he received the Hubbard Medal from the National Geographic Society. Fuchs retired from his position with the Antarctic Society in 1977.
International Geophysical Year
Beginning in July 1957 scientists from 67 nations combined their efforts in an international study of the solar-terrestrial environment. This program, known as the International Geophysical Year (IGY), was the most important worldwide scientific project to that date. The IGY continued through December 1958 during a period of maximum sunspot activity.
The IGY produced significant discoveries in several fields: Earth satellites found the Van Allen radiation belts that are responsible for northern and southern polar auras; oceanographic studies produced new information about the ocean floor and deep ocean currents; and scientists developed more effective gravity measurements for mineral exploration. As a result of the IGY, Antarctica was designated a nonmilitary region reserved for international scientific study, such as collection of meteorological data.
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