José María Sobral

Who was José María Sobral?

Alférez de Navío José María Sobral was an Argentine military scientist, Navy Sub-Lieutenant and Antarctic explorer.

Sobral was born in Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos. He joined the Swedish Antarctic Expedition on the ship Antarctic in Buenos Aires at the end of 1901, when the group headed by Otto Nordenskjöld asked the Argentine Government for supplies, to perform a series of meteorological, biological geological and geodesical studies.

The expedition arrived at Snow Hill Island at the Weddell Sea in 1902, where they were to spend one winter. But the ship that was to return to pick them up, the Antarctic, under command of Captain Carl Larsen, was crushed by the ice and sank, leaving the expedition to spend a second winter on Snow Hill Island, with no communication with the mainland or the Antarctic party, which was stranded and spent the winter in rough shelter on Paulet Island. A year later the Argentine corvette Uruguay rescued the survivors, including the Argentine officer.

Upon return to Argentina Sobral left the army and went to Sweden to study geology at the Uppsala University, where he doctored in 1913. In 1906 he married Swedish Elna W.