It was with great shock and regret that the news of the death of Edward Thiel in an aircraft accident in Antarctica was received by his many associates and friends. This misfortune was doubly severe in that it occurred not long after his marriage, and at a time when he was at the height of his unusual research abilities.
As one of the most promising students at the high school in his native city, Wausau, Wisconsin, these abilities had already become apparent. In 1950 he received the B.S. degree with Senior Honors in physics from the University of Wisconsin; he had conducted unsupervised research which would have been highly commendable even on a graduate level. A love for the out-of-doors, fostered by many camping and hunting trips with his father, led him into the study of earth science, and he remained at the University after graduation to pursue work in geophysics. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force, he received his Ph.D. degree in 1955. Because of his excellent record he was awarded an American Chemical Society Post-doctoral Fellowship the following year at the Department of Geophysics, University of Utah, where he engaged in a regional gravity and magnetic study of the Uinta Mountains.
His investigation of polar problems, with which he became so intimately connected, began m 1954 when he established a network of gravity stations in Alaska as part of a study of Alaskan crustal structure and geology. During the summer of 1956 he returned to Alaska for the American Geographical Society in order to conduct seismic and gravity measurements on the Juneau Ice Field. But the exploratory spirit was strong in Thiel, and Alaska was not far enough afield, so when the search began for geophysicists to join the United States I.G.Y. expedition to Antarctica, he was one of the first to volunteer. In the fall of 1956 he sailed as a member of the party which established Ellsworth Station on the Weddell Sea coast where he “wintered over” as deputy station scientific leader. The winter was not an easy one, both because of the harshness of the environment and because of personality conflicts among station personnel. Thiel showed exceptional ability for compromise and co-operation which won him the respect and admiration of all at the station. The following summer he served as co-leader and chief geophysicist of the Ellsworth traverse party which made a number of major glaciological and geographical discoveries despite severe difficulties in travelling and working in the remote and badly crevassed interior of the Filchner Ice Shelf.
Returning to the University of Wisconsin, Thiel undertook responsibility for the reduction and analysis of all the Antarctic traverse geophysical data as project leader at the Antarctic Data Analysis Center. Never content to remain in an office for long, however, he returned to the Antarctic in charge of airborne geophysical programs in 1958–59 and 1959–60.
His long association with the University of Wisconsin came to an end when he accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor of Geophysics at the University of Minnesota in January 1961. His teaching duties kept him from the south polar regions for one season, but during 1961 he inaugurated a program of seismic refraction studies north of Alaska as part of a unified geophysical study of the Arctic Ocean basin.
In October 1961 he returned for the fourth time to the Antarctic and had just completed a long aeromagnetic flight across a previously unexamined portion of the continent when the fatal accident occurred.
Ed. Thiel was a born scientist. His initiative as one of the first to apply a combination of geophysical methods to glaciological research in Antarctica has contributed greatly to our increasing knowledge of the Antarctic Ice Cap. He had a strong determination to accomplish whatever he set out to do; without this the Filchner Ice Shelf traverse could never have succeeded in the face of serious obstacles. But his strong will lay behind a calm and unassuming manner which brought him many friends. His appointment as deputy station scientific leader during the trying winter at Ellsworth Station is testimony to his tact and patience; these qualities, together with his enthusiasm for geophysics and glaciology, made him an inspiration to everyone who was fortunate enough to work with him.
Ed. Thiel’s accomplishments were many but expectations for the future were greater. Glaciology and the Society have suffered a severe professional loss, and his many friends a sad personal one. Our wholehearted sympathy goes out to his wife and family.
