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A Souvenir of the CESAR 1983 Arctic Expedition
by John MacFarlane 2016
A Commemorative Postal Cachet from the CESAR 1983 Arctic Expedition (Photo from the Nauticapedia collection. )
Polar Continental Shelf Project provided the logistic support and expertise to establish the camp. The Canadian Armed Forces built the runway necessary for the Hercules C-130 aircraft that enable bulky and heavy equipment to be used on CESAR. Technical and engineering support for the scientific program was provided by the Atlantic Geoscience Centre, Earth Physics Branch and Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory.
The 1983 Canadian Expedition to Study the Alpha Ridge (CESAR) seemed to establish that the Alpha Ridge is an extension of the continent from Ellesmere Island and hence there is a possibility that Canada may lay claim to the resource rights for the region, in particular for petroleum, according to the United Nations Law of the Sea.
The Expedition brought back core samples that contained three million years of history of the Arctic Ocean.
The envelope from which was scanned for the image was given to me by Denise Herlinveaux and was sent by her brother Ken who was a participant in the expedition.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2016) A Souvenir of the CESAR 1983 Arctic Expedition. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Arctic_CESAR_1983.php
Site News: April 25, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,359 vessel histories (with 15,634 images and 13,293 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.