Meinez Gravity Cruise. The yacht Marmion. Marmion Ridge?

[Jan Lundquist]

As we pick our way through the maze it is often hard to know which is a relevant discovery and which is only a tangential, coincidental event.

Felix Vening Meinez the developer of the Gravimeter, was the Dutch Scientist behind the study carried on aboard the navy's S-21 submarine.
Scientist of the Day - Felix Vening Meinesz July 30, 2019https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/sc ... ng-meinesz

This "Gravity Cruise", took place during the International Polar year of 1932. The IPY was organized to satisfy "great scientific interest of geophysical conditions in the polar regions and the close interrelation which was known to exist between these conditions and the corresponding conditions in lower latitudes." {underlining mine]

The Second International Polar Year, 1932–33 V. LAURSEN 1949 https://www.nature.com/articles/164170a0

Twenty-seven year old LtJG, (USNR) Townsend Brown helped Meinez collect data, and then calculated the results. At the end of the cruise, he wrote a long and detailed report for the Navy. He notes that the Phase 2 study team arrived in Nassau on the yacht, Marmion. I may have uncovered the individual who headed that team, but he's not relevant to this story.

What makes me want to bang my head against the wall is that in doing an image search for Marmion, I located a recent undersea map of the Marmion ridge, showing an aluminium deposit nearby. It seemed to my untrained undersea map reading eyes, to be an offshore ridge in the Canadian latitudes. I looked at it and went "swipe right," as it was not pertinent to what I wanted to find.

But today, I wanted to revisit it, in light of what I just learned about the IPY of course, I can't find it. What makes me want to bang my head against the wall is that the nature of the Townsend Brown story is such that one can see connections everywhere if one wishes to see them. I wish I could unsee see this one. As scientists well know, "correlation does not equal causation." Or even relevance.

Until I learn otherwise, Marmion Ridge is not relevant to the story. But if it ever is, I will have at least noted it for future Brown hounds.

[Jan Lundquist]

I am sure this is online somewhere, but for convenient reference, I am attaching it here:

TownsendBrownGravityExpedition1932.pdf

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