Anders Rapp (1927-1998)

Anders Rapp, Professor Emeritus of Physical Geography at the University of Lund, Sweden was best known for his work on rockslides, avalanches, periglacial debris accumulations, mass wasting features, and especially rock glaciers. Anders Rapp was an outstanding geomorphologist and teacher, with vast field experience in many parts of the world including Scandinavia, Yukon and Africa. He will be sorely missed in Swedish and international geographical circles

Russian Settlement and Land Rise in Nordaustlandet, Spitsbergen

Presents evidence of stable shoreline in the Murchisonfjorden region from 1957-1958 studies of a Russian hunting hut on Nordre Russoya. Age of the hut is determined as at least 100 years from settlement records and radiocarbon dating. It is located only 1.2 m above high-tide level and 0.8 m above the highest tides; hence the land has risen less than one meter in the past century. Any uplift that is occurring is probably balanced by the rise in sea level from glacier shrinkage

Valter Schytt (1919-1985)

Valter Schytt, Sweden's leading glaciologist and polar scientist, died 30 March 1985 in the Tarfala valley, Kebnekaise, Swedish Lapland. ... Always an internationalist, Schytt became the first non-British president of the International Glaciological Society (1969-72), he was long-time council member and then president (1977-79) of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, he was president of the Swedish Travellers' Club (1976-85), and he was a council member of Comite Arctique International (1979-85). Elected to membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1974, he maintained his active interest in polar research and at the same time continued as director of the station at Tarfala. His standing in the Swedish scientific community was recognized in 1976 by his appointment as Lord Chamberlain in Waiting to the Court of King Carl XVI Gustav, a post that he enjoyed and handled with aplomb. The culmination of Valter Schytt's work in the field of polar research came in 1980, when the Swedish icebreaker Ymer made a voyage to commemorate Nordenskiold's attainment of the Northeast Passage (and the circumnavigation of Asia) in Vega between 1878 and 1880. Schytt was responsible for much of the organization and, as scientific leader, he was on board for both legs of the expedition, which ranged around Svalbard, to Greenland in the west, to the waters north of Franz Josef Land in the east, and to latitude 82 30 N. Schytt would have been pleased with the final report of this multifaceted expedition, issued in 1987 by the Swedish Academy of Sciences under the editorship of Gunnar Hoppe. For his outstanding work on the Ymer-80 Expedition Valter Schytt was awarded the Vega Medal, the highest award of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, in 1981. Another result of Schytt's efforts to stimulate polar research was the creation of a Committee for Polar Research within the Secretariat (a special government entity). Sweden acceded to the Antarctic Treaty in 1984, and during several recent austral summers Swedish glaciologists, physical geographers, and Quaternary geologists have again worked in the Antarctic. This is Valter Schytt's legacy

John Hainsworth Mercer, 1922-1987

From 1951 until 1954, Mercer studied at McGill University. His Ph.D. thesis, ... was based on field work carried out in the vicinity of the Grinnell and Terra Nivea ice caps on southern Baffin Island. ... Mercer was highly motivated by field work and literally thrived on it. Typically, and often to the chagrin of at least one of his contemporaries, Mercer did not unnecessarily burden himself (or others) with loads of data. Many of his papers seemed to be largely based on his unusual synthesizing and perceptive powers, supported, where necessary, by a few, but key, radioisotope dates. Mercer was not a compulsive lecturer - in fact, he shunned such "duties" - but for those of us at the institute as graduate students (of which G.H. was one) Mercer was frequently a source of both private inspiration and considerable amusement. An important paper in 1968 set in motion his and others' ideas on the dynamics of "marine ice sheets" (Mercer, 1968). ... His realistic thinking through the ice sheet dynamics scenarios and the associated sea level changes inspired the numerical modellers to dedicate their paper to him. ... The results of his field work are of great importance in synthesizing the spatial variations of global climate change, which was one of the underlying themes of Mercer's research. ... His stimulating presence will be widely missed, especially by those at the Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus, Ohio

Covariant C and O Isotope Trends in Arctic Carbonate Crusts and ALH 84001: Potential Biomarker or Indicator of Cryogenic Formation Environment?

This work seeks to use the chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical characteristics of secondary carbonate minerals produced during brief aqueous events to identify the conditions of the aqueous environment in which they formed. Liquid water near the surface of Mars is subject to either rapid freezing and/or evaporation. These processes are also active on Earth, and produce secondary minerals that have complex chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic textures and compositions that can include covariant relationships between Delta C-13 (sub VPDB) and delta O-18 (sub VSMOW). The extremely well studied four billion year old carbonates preserved in martian meteorite ALH 84001 also show covariant delta C-13 and delta O-18 compositions, but these variations are manifested on a micro-scale in a single thin section while the variation observed so far in terrestrial carbonates is seen between different hand samples