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By Ed Stiles, College of Engineering
August 24, 2007

When Ben K. Sternberg was growing up in Wausau, Wis., he dreamed of becoming an Antarctic explorer like his hometown hero, Edward Thiel.

Thiel died in a 1961 plane crash in Antarctica and subsequently had an Antarctic mountain range named in his honor.

Sternberg, now a professor of Mining and Geological Engineering at The University of Arizona, eventually realized his dream and went to Antarctica as a geophysicist to carry out scientific studies with the Ross Ice Shelf Project (RISP) during 1973-1974.

Recently Sternberg further followed in the steps of Ed Thiel when his name was attached to a peak located in Antarctica's Nebraska Peaks Range.

It's a thrill and an honor for someone who started out at about age eight reading every book he could find in the local library about Antarctic pioneers like Amundson, Scott and Byrd, he said.

"Some of my friends were fascinated with space and dreamed of visiting the moon or other planets, but I wanted to actually do the exploring, not just dream about it," Sternberg said.

So he joined the RISP as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison doing subsurface imaging with ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity surveys. These are the same techniques that are the focus of much of his research today.

"One of the principal goals of RISP was to identify suitable drilling locations for later work that would involve drilling through the ice shelf, the water column and into the sediments beneath," Sternberg said. "We had many secondary goals, including mapping layers within the ice — using GPR and resistivity — and mapping deep structures using primarily seismic, gravity and magnetic methods."

The RISP office at the University of Nebraska eventually initiated the procedure for naming the peak in Sternberg's honor to recognize his contributions to the expedition and Antarctic research.

The proposal was sent to the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The long process of official naming requires international cooperation since Antarctica is governed by 46 countries under the Antarctic Treaty.

"Research in Antarctica is always a team effort," Sternberg said. "I was a small part of this team effort, but I am proud of what we accomplished. The work we did on the Ross Ice Shelf is now playing a role in helping us to better understand global climate change, for example."