Thomas Charles Poulter (March 3, 1897 – June 4, 1978) was an American scientist and

antarctic explorer This list of Antarctic expeditions is a chronological list of expeditions involving Antarctica. Although the existence of a southern continent had been hypothesized as early as the writings of Ptolemy in the 1st century AD, the South Pole was no ...

who worked at the

Armour Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

and

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

, where he was an associate director.

Early career

Poulter taught physics while attending high school (1914-1918), joined the U.S. Navy in 1918 and returned to school in 1921. Poulter received his B.S. from

Iowa Wesleyan College Iowa Wesleyan University is a private university in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It is Iowa's first co-educational institution of higher learning and the oldest of its type west of the Mississippi River. The institution is affiliated with the United Met ...

(IWC) in 1923; took a position as head of the chemistry division at IWC (1925); and served as head of the math, physics and astronomy divisions with "great creativity and much success" while attending graduate school at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

(Ph. D., 1933). While he was a physics professor at IWS he recognized

James Van Allen James Alfred Van Allen (September 7, 1914August 9, 2006) was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa. He was instrumental in establishing the field of magnetospheric research in space. The Van Allen radiation belts were named afte ...

as a student and put him to work, at 35 cents an hour, preparing seismic and magnetic equipment for the Antarctic Expedition. He was second in command on the Second Byrd Antarctic Mission to the South Pole with

Richard E. Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...

. The Poulter Glacier was named after him by Admiral Byrd.Into Little America documentary film (1935) Byrd credited him with saving his life as the expedition leader approached death from

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...

poisoning. After his first expedition he became the Scientific Director of the Armour Research Foundation at the

(later

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

) where he developed the

Antarctic Snow Cruiser The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was a vehicle designed from 1937 to 1939 under the direction of Thomas Poulter, intended to facilitate transport in Antarctica during the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–41). The Snow Cruiser was a ...

(a.k.a. "Penguin 1"). This device was built for and taken along on his second expedition with Admiral Byrd in 1939.

Later career

In 1948 he joined the

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

(SRI) in Menlo Park, California, where he remained until his death in 1978. While at SRI he did research involving dynamic phenomena including

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

and eventually

Biosonar Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is a biological sonar used by several animal species. Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these ...

. Poulter devised seismic pattern shooting in the 1950s, and according to W. Harry Mayne, Poulter's "method called for a pattern of explosive charges to be mounted on poles (usually 5-6 ft above the surface of the ground, which prevented any significant environmental damage)." He became interested in seals after visiting the

elephant seal Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oil ...

colony at

Año Nuevo Island Año Nuevo Island (''Año Nuevo'' is Spanish for ''New Year'') is a small island off Año Nuevo Point on the coast of Northern California, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. The island has an area of . It is an important breeding site for n ...

off the coast of California in 1961. The seal colony there included

elephant seals Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oil ...

sea lions Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

harbor seals The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared sea ...

and many others. He began studying the seal colonies in 1962 and was active in having the island protected as a biological preserve in 1967. The

Poulter Laboratory The Poulter Laboratory is a research lab within SRI International's Physical Sciences Division known for experiments relating to explosions, impacts, and fire. The lab is named for Thomas Poulter, who gained initial fame as an arctic explorer, and ...

was named after him. After he retired from managing Poulter Labs he founded the Bio Sonar Lab and Marine Mammal Study Center for SRI in the Coyote Hills outside of Fremont CA. There he did research on a number of marine mammals. He was fond of them as he described in a "Note" for the Arctic. He died on June 4, 1978 in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; ...

while working in his laboratory.

Publications

* Poulter, Thomas C., (1943) HYDRAULIC PUMP, Patent No. 2,333,885. United States Patent Office. * Poulter, Thomas C., (1945) METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CASTING METAL, Patent No. 2,379,401. United States Patent Office. * Poulter, T. C., (1947) Seismic measurements on the Ross Shelf Ice—Part I, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 28, Issue 2, p. 162-170. * Poulter, T. C., Allen, C. F., and Miller, S. W., (1950) Seismic measurements on the Taku Glacier, in Geophysical studies in the Antarctic; Contract N8onr 526, ProjectNo. NR-081-020, published by the Stanford Research Institute. * Poulter, T. C. (1950) The Poulter seismic method of geophysical exploration, Geophysics, Vol. 1 5, pp. 1 81 -207. * Poulter, T. C., (1950) The Poulter Seismic Method, The Canadian Mining and Metalluraical Bulletin, May, pp. 258–267. * Poulter, Thomas C., (1954) METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SEISMIC EXPLORATION, Patent No. 2,672,204. United States Patent Office. * Poulter, T. C., (1955) Meteor observations in the Antarctic; Byrd Antarctic Expedition II, 1933–1935. Stanford Research Institute * Poulter, T. C. 1963. Sonar signals of the sea lion. Science, 139 753-755 * Poulter, T. C. 1963. The sonar of the sea lion. Inst. Elec. Electron. Eng. Trans., 10, 109-111 * Pressure regulation in the middle ear cavity of sea lions: a possible mechanism S Odend'hal, T C Poulter Science. 1966 Aug 12;153 (737):768-9 5940898 * Orr, R. T. and T. C. Poulter (1967) Some observations on reproduction, growth, and social behavior in the Steller sea lion Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 35:193–226 * Sea lion echo ranging H N Shaver, T C Poulter The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 1967 Aug * R C Hubbard, T C Poulter 1968 Seals and sea lions as models for studies in comparative biology Lab Anim Care. 1968 Apr ;18 (2):Suppl:288-97 4233361 * Watkins, W.; Singleton, R.; Poulter, T. Comments on spectral analysis of the calls of the Male Killer Whale Audio and Electroacoustics, IEEE Transactions on Volume 16, Issue 4, Dec 1968 Page(s): 523 - 523 * R J Stephens, I J Beebe, T C Poulter Innervation of the vibrissae of the California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Anat Rec. 1973 Aug ;176 (4):421-41 4723405 * W B Neff, M T Sullivan, T C Poulter A magnetic-drive circulator designed for completely closed carbon dioxide absorption systems Anesthesiology. 1979 Aug ;51 (2):169-70 453621

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poulter, Thomas 1897 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American physicists American Polar Society honorary members explorers of Antarctica Iowa Wesleyan University faculty SRI International people