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Laurence McKinley Gould | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Gould in 1961 | |
| 4thPresident of Carleton College | |
| In office 1945–1962 | |
| Preceded by | Donald Cowling |
| Succeeded by | John Nason |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 22, 1896 |
| Died | June 21, 1995(1995-06-21) (aged 98) |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Laurence McKinley Gould (August 22, 1896 – June 21, 1995)[1] was an Americangeologist, educator, and polar explorer. He made expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic, and was chief scientist onRichard Evelyn Byrd's first Antarctic expedition, which Gould described in his 1931 bookCold: the Record of an Antarctic Sledge Journey. He served as president ofCarleton College from 1945 to 1962, and president of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 1964. His namesakes include the research vesselLaurence M. Gould as well as Antarctic features includingGould Bay,Gould Coast, andMount Gould.
Gould was born inLacota, Michigan on August 22, 1896.[1] After completing high school inSouth Haven, Michigan in 1914, he went toBoca Raton, Florida and taught grades 1 to 8 in aone-room school for two years, while saving money for college. He enrolled at theUniversity of Michigan in 1916, but interrupted his education the following year to enlist in theU.S. Army following U.S. entry intoWorld War I. He served in the Army until 1919, when he returned to the university to resume his studies.
After graduating in 1921 with a B.S. degree in geology he joined the University of Michigan faculty as a geology instructor while continuing his studies there. During his undergraduate days, he was the founder of the Beta Tau chapter of thePi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He also was an active member in the universitySociety of Les Voyageurs. He received an M.A. degree in 1923 and a D.Sc. degree in 1925, with a dissertation on the geology of Utah'sLa Sal Mountains, and he advanced to assistant professor in 1926, and to associate professor in 1930.
In the summer of 1926 Gould undertook his first trip to theArctic, serving as assistant director and geologist with the University of MichiganGreenland Expedition. The following summer he was geographer and topologist forGeorge P. Putnam's expedition to survey the coast ofBaffin Island inArctic Canada.
During 1928 to 1930 he accompaniedRichard E. Byrd on his first expedition toAntarctica, serving as the expedition's chief scientist and second-in-command.
In March 1929 Gould along withHarold June andBernt Balchen flew in the expeditionsFokker Universal east to establish a geologic camp near theRockefeller Mountains at the edge of what would soon be known asMarie Byrd Land. A furious blizzard hit, destroying their plane. Not having radio contact with the party for ten days, Byrd made a rescue flight that found them marooned but well. During that time they had continued scientific observations.[2]
On November 4, 1929, Gould and five companions began a grueling 2½ month, 1500-mile dog-sledge journey into theQueen Maud Mountains, with the primary purpose of providing ground support and possible emergency assistance for Byrd's historic first airplane flight over theSouth Pole and a secondary purpose of conducting the first geological and glaciological survey of an area that Gould called "a veritable paradise for a geologist."[3]
After the flight over the Pole in November 1929, Gould and his companions climbedMount Fridtjof Nansen to investigate its geology. The layered sandstones that Gould found in outcrops at the mountain's peak helped confirm that Antarctica was linked geologically to the Earth's southern continents inGondwana.
The expedition's progress had been reported regularly in the news media, and after his return he received theByrd Antarctic Expedition Medal in gold, the 1930David Livingstone Gold Medal of theAmerican Geographical Society, and a Medal of the Mayor's Committee of theCity of New York.
On August 2, 1930, two weeks after returning from Antarctica, Gould married Margaret ("Peg") Rice inAnn Arbor, Michigan. She had been a student in one of his classes at the University of Michigan.
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In the months and years after returning from Antarctica, Gould traveled around the US giving lectures on the experience. His 1931 bookCold: the Record of an Antarctic Sledge Journey described the dog-sledge trek, recalling blindingblizzards,snow bridges that collapsed into deep crevasses, and weather so cold that it nearly froze a person's eyelids shut. Additionally, he published several scientific articles about the findings of the Byrd expedition.
In 1932 Gould and his family moved to Minnesota after he accepted a position as a full professor atCarleton College where he founded and served as chairman of the geology department.[4] Gould was named president of the college in 1945, holding that position until 1962.[4] In 1962 he took his retirement package from Carleton College, and then accepted a position on the geology faculty at theUniversity of Arizona where he taught from 1963 through 1979.[4]
He also served asPresident of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
During his lifetime, Gould was the recipient of 26 honorary degrees.[3] In 1995 Carleton College renamed its college library the Laurence McKinley Gould Library in his honor. TheR/V Laurence M. Gould, a 76-m-long ice-strengthened research ship built in 1997 for theNational Science Foundation and designed for year-round polar operations, is named in his honor.[5] He is also commemorated in the names of several places in Antarctica, includingMount Gould,Gould Bay, andGould Coast.[6][7][8]
