Antarctic summit named for a University of Iceland scientist

A summit, or rather a nunatak (a rocky summit rising above a glacier) was recently named for Guðfinna Th. Aðalgeirsdóttir, Professor of glaciology at the University of Iceland. Guðfinna has been active in research on glaciers all around the world, most of them retreating fast as result of climate change. Guðfinna has travelled far and wide in her work, reaching the Antarctic at one point in her career. Her international colleagues have struggled with the name “Guðfinna” and the nickname “Tolly” has stuck to her. The nunatak is therefore named Tolly Nunatak, and the story behind the naming is interesting. 

In the autumn of 2004 Guðfinna was in the Falklands waiting for the weather to clear so that flying over the Antarctic was possible for research and measurements. As she prepared for the trip she had the misfortune of rupturing her Achilles tendon, so she was unable join the expedition. Her colleagues were saddened by this so they decided to name one of the nunataks they discovered with GPS technology Tolly’s heel. 

“I myself therefore never reached Tolly Nunatak, but my colleagues named one of the measurement points “Tolly’s Heel” – thus commemorating my tendon. In this way they included me in spirit, even though I was sent home from the Falklands with my ankle in a cast. It was really depressing watching my colleagues fly southwards and being unable to participate,” says Guðfinna. 

Later she reached the Antarctic, in the winter of 2011-2012, and 2012-2013. Her project there concerned how to understand the flow of ice, the manner and speed by which it succumbs to its own weight and is deformed. 

“I am very pleased; almost moved, by this whole initiative started by my friends,” says Guðfinna. “Andy Smith, who led the project back then in the Antarctic wrote a letter to the naming committee of the Antarctic in the UK and had the name confirmed there. This whole thing is dear to my heart,” says Guðfinna, and adds that having a whole mountain named for her tickles her vanity, even if her heel has been left out of it in the final version. 

Tolly Nunatak is between higher mountains in the Flowers Hills in the Ellsworth mountains on the Antarctic.