Vivian Fuchs
Sir Vivian Ernest "Bunny" Fuchs ( born February 11, 1908 in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, England; † November 11, 1999 in Cambridge ) was a British geologist and Arctic explorer.
Life and work
Early years and first expeditions
He was the son of German immigrant farmers and Ernst Fuchs (1882-1957) from Kahla and his wife Violet Anne Watson ( 1874-1942 ). He studied geology and natural sciences at Brighton College and St John's College, Cambridge, where Sir James Wordie, Ernest Shackleton's Endurance participant in expedition, his tutor was.
As a geologist in Wordies expedition team in the East Greenland traveled Vivian Fuchs 1929 for the first time the Arctic. His next expeditions have taken him to Africa, where he studied from 1930 to 1931 the geology of some lakes and 1932 an archaeological tour group accompanied. In 1933 he led an expedition of its own at the Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana called ), accompanied by his wife, Joyce Connell, whom he had married in the same year. In 1935 he received his doctorate for a thesis on the tectonics of the Rift Valley to the Great East African grave breach. In 1936 he accompanied Cuthbert Peek Grant from the Royal Geographical Society at the Rukwa Lake.
During World War II Vivian Fuchs served in the British army in West Africa from 1942 to 1943 and then to 1945 in Europe. In 1946 he was appointed Major of the Army.
Travel to Antarctica
In 1947, Fox began his first trip to Antarctica as head of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, which was to make the team for the British Antarctic Expedition of 1951 later. For his expedition him no technical equipment were available and 1949-1950 he stayed and his team by particularly difficult conditions for two summers without external contact in Antarctica. After his return he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.
During the time in the ice he made the plan to attempt a crossing of Antarctica and to fulfill the plan of Ernest Shackleton, the this had to retire. At the same time he wanted to use such a journey for his research to determine with seismic unit thickness of the ice of Antarctica.
From November 24th 1957 to March 2, 1958 he succeeded in this crossing of the so-called British Commonwealth Transantarctic Expedition from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea on the pole. He was supported by a second team under the leadership of Sir Edmund Hillary, which was stationed at Scott Base. Fuchs and Hillary fought from two different directions a friendly race to the South Pole, which Hillary decided just for themselves. Thus, Hillary led the third expedition - by Amundsen and Scott - successfully to the pole, Fox fourth. The actual main task Hillarys was the system of supply stations for the team of fox on the second half of the way. When crossing fox put in exactly 99 days, a distance of 3,440 kilometers back. Queen Elizabeth II elevated him for 1958 to knighthood.
From 1958 to 1973 Vivian Fuchs was Director of the British Antarctic Survey and founded the Fox Foundation, whose aim is to attract young and underprivileged people to participate in training programs and expeditions. Fox was also elected in 1971 president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and in 1974 to the Royal Society. From 1982 to 1984 he was President of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1990 his wife died and he married a year later Eleanor Honnywill. Fox died in 1999.
Works
- Antarctic Adventure (The Commonwealth Trans - Antarctic Expedition from 1955 to 1958 ), Cassell & Co., London, 1958 ( German edition: Cross over the South Pole Conquest of the sixth continent, Ullsteinhaus, Frankfurt am Main 1960. )