A slideshow on Douglas Mawson- A famous Australian Scientist

1. Douglas Mawson
By Joaquin

2. Early Life
Douglas Mawson was born on the 5th of May 1882. Where?
Yorkshire, England. In his life, he was a farmer, director,
explorer and a geologist. He and his family moved to Australia,
near Sydney when Douglas was about 2 years old (1884).
He went to school in Rooty Hill and Sydney. He also went to
the University of Sydney from when he was 17 (1899) until
when he was 19 (1901).
Two years later he left for 6 months to Vanuatu (an island north
of New Zealand) because he wanted to map the landscape. At
that time it was called New Hebrides (say “heb-red-ease”) –
this was like his introduction to scientific exploration. His paper-
“The geology of New Hebrides” was one of the best papers of
that area.

3. Early discoveries
He published two papers in 1903 and 1904 about Australia’s
geology, and many on Vanuatu. In 1905, he first discovered the
mineral “davidite”- a mixture of titanium and uranium.
One of his biggest works in South Australia was his exploration
on the rocks of the Barrier Range in NSW. These rocks were
from the Precambrian era, the first ever era, when the world
was just created. They also contained many minerals (about 20
different kinds).
He identified two groups of rocks which led him to publish
'Geological investigations in the Broken Hill area’. He had also
previously submitted a copy of this to the University of
Adelaide.

4. Douglas in the Antarctic
In 1907, Sir Ernest Shackelton travelled to Adelaide on his voyage
to Antarctica. Douglas hitched a ride, hoping to document and
analyse the glacier’s structure and it’s impact on the environment.
Douglas was appointed the physicist for the expedition.
Even though he knew that Shackleton’s main aim was to reach the
South Pole quickly, he wanted more opportunity for the scientists.
But despite all that, the scientists were very successful on the
expedition and he was able to publish a good amount of data on
his observations of the South Pole.
He would be, from then on, long associated with the Antarctic. He
went back to his position in the University of Adelaide in 1909 and
at that time his plans for more work on the Antarctic began taking
shape.

5. Disaster
So he got some money and partners for his new expedition to
Antarctica (Commonwealth Bay, to be exact) and set off in
1912 with B. E. S. Ninnis and X. Mertz. Out of the three, only
Doug survived (barely).
The trip was a disaster. When they were about 500 km into the
Antarctic, Ninnis fell through a large crevasse with the sledge
and all the dogs. With very little equipment they began their
journey home eating dog’s liver.
But dog’s livers are full of Vitamin A and are quite toxic- this
nearly killed Douglas and did kill X. Mertz. So Douglas left
everything unessential for survival, except his geological
specimens. He cut his sled in half with a saw and dragged it on
his own the last 161 km’s.

6. Douglas as a Teacher
He was knighted in 1914 and in 1915 he was living in London- he
wrote an account on his journey- The Home of the Blizzard. This
account had many photographs of the journey and was
considered a classic of polar literature.
Douglas was helped by other well-known scientists to analyse and
document the statistics he had collected- it was such a
humungous task that there were 22 books on his data and it took
them until 1947 to complete.
He went back to the University of Adelaide in 1919 and just 2
years later (1921), he became the professor of geology and
mineralogy. He did a lot of “hands-on” research with the students
and had made major contributions to the knowledge of geology in
Australia.

7. Ending
He retired at age 70, married Francisca Adraina Delprat in
Melbourne and died on October 14, 1948. He was famous for
his Antarctic Expeditions between 1911 and 1914, and because
he was one of the first to climb Mount Erebusb (in Antarctica).