Passel, Charles F.

Born in Indianapolis on April 9, 1915, Charles Passel received a bachelor’s degree in geology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1938. The opportunity for him and his advisor, Dr. F. Alton Wade, to accompany Admiral Richard Byrd on the Third Antarctic Expedition came as Passel worked on a graduate degree at Miami. The official mission of the expedition was to look for strategic minerals, map the coastline, and explore new areas. From November 1939 through June 1941, Passel, in a group of 33 (out of the total 59) men, traveled to and was stationed at “West Base – Little America,” Antarctica. In addition to geological and meteorological study, Passel’s duties included the supervision of supplies, the operation of a radio, dog driving and a part in the care of 150 sled dogs. Passel’s most notable accomplishments during the expedition were an 87-day side trip to explore and map the Edsel Ford Mountain Range, and his work and study with Major Paul A. Siple in developing a measurement of the effects of subfreezing temperature on the human body. The result of this study, entitled “Measurements of Dry Atmospheric Cooling in Subfreezing Temperatures” was published in 1945 by the American Philosophical Society and is referred to today as the “Wind Chill Factor.”

In 1941, immediately following the expedition, Passel married Alda Sibley. His reports of the expedition findings facilitated his completion of a master’s degree from Indiana University in April 1942. He then served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was stationed in the Southwest Pacific. After the war he taught at various universities, worked for Standard Oil and then, in 1948, relocated to Abilene, Texas, to work for Walter Duncan Oil Properties. The Passels and their three daughters continued to live in Texas: first in Abilene, then moving to Ft. Worth to work at Ambassador Oil and then back to Abilene. Passel became an independent geologist in 1963 and permanently settled in Abilene in 1969.

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