RAY ADIE laid the foundations for the study of Antarctic geology in the postwar era and as deputy director of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) contributed significantly to its early consolidation as a leading scientific organisation.
Adie came in a line of influential South African geologists, one of whom, Alexander du Toit, was an early convert to the hypothesis of continental drift and assembled convincing evidence for the existence of the Gondwana supercontinent. It was unsurprising therefore that Adie should see Antarctica — the key piece of Gondwana — as promising terrain for his own interests.
His research in the late 1940s and early 1950s, undertaken by arduous traverses supported by dog teams in unexplored regions of Antarctica, enabled him to assemble some of the first coherent interpretations of the geological evolution of the area.
Bluff in build and manner, Adie was well suited to the pioneering days of Antarctic scientific exploration. He was ever cheerful, complained little in adversity and was meticulous in recording details of his findings. In 1947, with three colleagues from Hope Bay, he sledged 1,120km, to Stonington Island in 71 days. They endured violent winds, crevasses, soft wet surfaces and broken sledges. Nevertheless Adie made valuable discoveries, including Jurassic volcanics containing well-preserved tree trunks indicative of the significant shift in climate and position of the peninsula.
At Stonington, Adie met Vivian Fuchs, the commander of FIDS (Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey, the former name of BAS), whom he taught dog driving. When the relief ship failed to reach the base he faced the prospect of a third Antarctic winter. Undaunted, Adie grasped the opportunity for further surveys and, with Fuchs, set out for George VI Sound to examine Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks.
Advertisement
Their route through virgin territory to Eklund Island is one of the longest unsupported sledge journeys made in the polar regions — 1,745km in 90 days. During their return they discovered the edge of the ice shelf had broken away, along with their depot. Locating a point where the iceberg was only 10ft from the 100ft-high cliff edge, they bridged it precariously with a 12ft sledge and retrieved their cache. With his earlier trip from Hope Bay Adie had sledged, uniquely, the entire length of the Antarctic Peninsula from its northern tip to its southern extremity.
Raymond John Adie was born in 1925. He attended Maritzburg College and graduated from the University of Natal, with a BSc in geology and chemistry. At the age of 21 he joined FIDS and sailed to Hope Bay. In 1950 he went to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he worked up his results for a PhD. For a short time he moved into the chemicals industry with Albright and Wilson, sourcing phosphates in the tropics. But in 1956 he was recruited to establish the geological section of the BAS at the University of Birmingham.
Adie headed this group for 20 years and recruited some 100 young geologists to Antarctic projects. Drawing together the returning data, he produced a number of geological syntheses which created a solid platform for later study of the development of the Antarctic.
In the 1970s, as Antarctic science became increasingly relevant to studies of the environment, the scientific sections of FIDS/BAS, scattered around the UK, were brought together in a single centre in Cambridge. Adie was appointed deputy director in 1973, when Richard Laws took over as director from Fuchs, and worked assiduously to ensure the effective use of BAS’s limited resources. He also brought his attention to detail and precise English to the editorship of the BAS Bulletin and scientific reports series. He was also a scientific editor of the Journal of Glaciology — his interest in this topic had been stimulated by an expedition to northern Norway as a graduate student.
Adie was elected chairman of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research working group on geology in 1980 and edited the substantial proceedings of two SCAR earth sciences conferences.
Advertisement
In 1982, while Laws was overseas, Adie was called upon to front BAS when Argentine troops invaded South Georgia and captured the BAS scientific station at Grytviken. Adie’s grasp of the Antarctic situation and his powerful personality were in no small measure responsible for persuading Margaret Thatcher of the importance of the Antarctic dimension in the South Atlantic campaign, and, after the conflict, of the need for increased funding.
He retired from the BAS in 1985, but continued his editorial work while dividing his time between Cambridge and South Africa. He was appointed OBE in 1970 and was awarded the Polar Medal (Antarctic Clasp) in 1952 and the Fuchs Medal in 1985. He is commemorated in Adie Inlet on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Adie’s wife, Aileen, died in 1984. He is survived by two daughters.
Advertisement
Ray Adie, OBE, Antarctic geologist and explorer, was born on February 26, 1925. He died on May 14, 2006, aged 81.