A review of Polar Mariner - Beyond the Limits in Antarctica by Capt Tom Woodfield has been made by Ian Russell. The author joined RRS Shackleton for her first voyage after she was acquired by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (now British Antarctic Survey) in 1955 at the same time as...

Prior to the development of modern navigation methods and modern charts, the mariner was left to his own devices both in approaching unknown and known coasts. Although Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer...

A glance at a map of the Philippine Islands shows that the Sulu Sea is nearly an enclosed body of water: the Sulu Archipelago on the southeast; Palawan to the...

Mt. Shasta is a huge stratovolcano near the southern end of the Cascade Mountains of western North America. It rises to an elevation of 14,179 feet above sea level and...

The great classical continent-spanning geodetic networks of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries had two major obstacles to overcome – distance and the curvature of the Earth. Distance was overcome by...

Once upon a time there was no satnav, multibeam sonar or a computer to handle a survey system. Hydrographic surveying was done ‘by hand’ with instruments long forgotten, instruments which...

I was recently asked by Hydro international to answer, in the form of an Invited Reply, the question of why fewer people are choosing hydrographic surveying as a profession. Levels...

Over the last year, I have been in a very privileged position of being an active member of a design team responsible for a major re-organisation within my company. During...

In 1958 Commander Hunt MBE, RN was about to undertake a survey in HMNZS <i>Lachlan</i> to complete NZ Chart 61, which included part of the rugged West Coast of the...

Two famous scientists, Charles Darwin (1809-82) and John Murray (1841-1914) differed greatly as to how tropical atolls had assumed their unique structure: a shallow lagoon surrounded by a narrow strip...