Bob Tingey

Station	Year	Season
Prince Charles Mountains	1969-70	Summer
Prince Charles Mountains	1970-71	Summer
Prince Charles Mountains	1971-72	Summer
Prince Charles Mountains	1972-73	Summer
Enderby Land	1976-77	Summer
Bunger Hills	1985-86	Summer

Bob Tingey died on 17 November after a 30 year battle with Parkinson’s disease. Bob first went to Antarctica in 1970 as a geologist in the Prince Charles Mountains Project and returned for many successive seasons, leading the geological studies in the Prince Charles Mountains and westwards across Enderby Land. Much of the work was in collaboration with geologists of the Soviet Antarctic Expeditions. He was a member and secretary of the SCAR Working Group on GeoIogy. In addition to detailed publications resulting from the field work, he organised and edited a comprehensive publication on the geology of Antarctica.
Email received from Ian McLeod 28/12/71

Bob Tingey was a scientific member of the Prince Charles Mountains survey parties in 1970, 1971 and 1972. He was awarded the Australian Antarctic Medal in 1990 for outstanding service to the Australian Antarctic Program in the field of Geology, and is described in the Citation as “One of Australia’s best known, widely respected and influential Antarctic Scientists”. He recognised the value of international collaboration with other nations in Antarctica, especially the then Soviet Union.
Bob was the editor of a major scientific publication – the Oxford Science Monographs Geology of Antarctica, published in 1990, a comprehensive volume covering all aspects of geology in the Antarctic, and still regarded as a leading work in this field.
He was Secretary of the SCAR working Group on Geology from 1980 to 1998, only standing down because of the onset of Parkinson’s disease which was to prove a long battle, ultimately claiming his life.
In 1973 the Australian Antarctic Names and Medal Committee named a glacier after him – the Tingey Glacier 73°33’53″S 68°24’44″E.
Bob is quoted in The Silence is Calling (pp 328-9) as saying that summer scientists were “not considered the real thing” and not “bona fide heroes” by the winterers at the time, and were nick-named “cut lunch explorers” as they were flown out to their research sites each day from the base camp complete with chocolate bars and sandwiches to see them through the day. This is an example of the wry sense of humour for which he was famous.
The above is a precis of the full tribute to Bob Tingey by Joe Johnson
Email received from Joe Johnson 30/12/71

A very full tribute to Bob Tingey written by Malcolm Robertson on 18/12/17