Interview of Charles R. Bentley by Dian O. Belanger

Abstract

Geophysicist Charles Bentley led a pre-IGY over-snow traverse in the summer of 1956-57 along the newly blazed tractor-train route from Little America V to the not-yet-built inland Byrd Station. Taking seismic measurements en route, the group concluded to their surprise that much of the land beneath the ice sheet lay below sea level. Bentley wintered over at Byrd in 1957 to prepare for the coming summer's traverse, to continue mapping the West Antarctic ice sheet. Excited by the work and unsure that he would ever have such an opportunity again, he signed on for a second year to repeat the entire sequence. Later he led three more traverse expeditions, spent eighteen seasons on the ice, and served as a member and leader of the National Research Council’s Polar Research Board, the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research, and SCAR’s Group of Specialists on Global Change and the Antarctic (GLOCHANT).