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Fifty years ago, UW scientist Charlie Bentley made his maiden voyage to a frigid, faraway land – and he’s been returning ever since.
Charlie Bentley’s adventure of a lifetime has lasted more than fifty years.
It started in 1957, when he first set foot in Antarctica as a young researcher. Bentley’s own photographs — some reproduced here — document his two-year stay, including exploration of uncharted territory and some remarkable discoveries.
“I never looked back. I never looked around. I never considered doing something else,” says Bentley, shown at left in December 1958. Today an emeritus UW professor of geophysics, he has returned fifteen times and is considered a leading expert on Antarctica. Yet, his work is not done. Now seventy-eight, Bentley serves as principal investigator for the UW’s Ice Coring and Drilling Service, which produces ice cores containing a record of the last 80,000 years of the earth’s climate. Scientists use that information to determine the connection between previous increases in greenhouse gases and climate change.
Bentley most recently traveled to the continent in January 2008, but it was his first trip into the unknown that got him hooked.
Photos courtesy of Charlie Bentley.
This story appeared originally in the Fall 2008 issue of On Wisconsin.