On Roald Amundsen's scientific achievements

Abstract

This paper describes the significant direct and indirect contributions to science made by the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen in the period 1897–1924. It documents that his expeditions through the North-west Passage (1903–06) with Gjoa , to the South Pole (1910–12) with Fram and through the North-east Passage (1918–1920) and the Chukchi and East Siberian seas (1921–25) with Maud yielded vast amounts of published scientific material on meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, geology, palaeontology, oceanography, ethnography, zoology and botany, which, though celebrated at the time, have since received scant recognition in more recent assessments of Amundsen’s achievements. Keywords: Fridtjof Nansen; polar exploration; South Pole; North-west Passage; North-east Passage; H.U. Sverdrup (Published: 10 March 2016) To access the supplementary material for this article, please see the supplementary file in the column to the right (under Article Tools). Citation: Polar Research 2016, 35 , 31319, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/polar.v35.31319