U.S. PROFESSOR TO STUDY GLACIERS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30575, 19 October 1964, Page 1

U.S. PROFESSOR TO STUDY GLACIERS

The correlation of glacier advances and retreats with the sunspot cycle, and the recent history of climatic changes in general, will be studied by Professor D. Lawrence, of the department of botany, of the University of Minnesota, who has just arrived in Christchurch to spend nine months as a Fulbright research fellow at Lincoln College. The glacial studies, says Professor Lawrence, could have some practical importance to New Zealand in helping to develop means of predicting trends in climate changes. Professor Lawrence also hopes to study the processes of revegetation and soil development on surfaces left bare after the recession of glaciers, particularly on the West Coast of the South Island.

Professor Lawrence has already made similar studies in the Washington-Oregon region of the United States, southeast Alaska, Norway, and southern Chile and the Argentine, with a swift view also of Iceland. In south-eastern Alaska he demonstrated a relationship between the 11year sunspot cycle and the advance and retreat of the glaciers, and hopes to do the same in New Zealand. The correlation between the number of sunspots recorded in a particular year and the rainfall in that year is more marked in New Zealand than anywhere else, said Professor Lawrence. As there is also an inverse relationship between sunspot numbers and temperature the correlation

• between the sunspot cycle and i what the glaciers were doing i could be well marked. : Professor Lawrence expects ! the West Coast to be rather ■ similar in topography and ' vegetation to the south-west- ! ern section of Chile, where he ; spent some months in 1958i 59 for the American Geo- • graphic Society. Glaciers reach the sea as far north as 46 degrees .latitude, he ; said, the most northerly having its source in a mountain about 13,000 ft high and 15 ■ miles from the coast. “If Mount Cook was in Fiordland, you would probably have a glacier running into the sea in New Zealand,” he said. Professor Lawrence will be • helped in his work by Mrs Lawrence, a zoologist. He will also co-operate closely : with Professor T. W. Walker, of Lincoln College, and with

other biologists and geologists. Besides carrying out his project on glaciers. Professor Lawrence will be glad to discuss problems of land management.

Firing Postponed.—Firing of the second British Blue Streak rocket, scheduled for tomorrow morning, has been postponed for 24 hours. No reason was given for the postponement Woomera, October 18. Killed by Bees.—An autopsy will be conducted on Mr Cecil Frazer, aged 40, of Woolgoola, New South Wales, who died in hospital in Brisbane yesterday after being stung by bees this week.—Brisbane, Oct 18.