Education
University of Sheffield.
University of Sheffield.
Koerner was born on 3 July 1932 in Copnor, Portsmouth. From an early age, he was nicknamed "Fritz" on account of his Germanic surname, and the moniker stuck. He was educated at Sheffield University, after which he taught at Bridgemary Community School before joining the British Antarctic Survey in 1957.
In the 1970s Koerner emigrated to Canada where he spent more than forty years studying the history embedded in glacial ice.
He was head of the Ice Core Laboratory at Ottawa. Koerner died after being sent home from his final mission on 26 May 2008.
Koerner has a 600 metre high rock named after him on Deception Island in the British Antarctic Territory.
From 1968 to 1969 he was a member of the British Transport-Arctic Expedition led by Wally Herbert, a 3,800 miles (6,100 km) surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean, from Alaska to Spitsbergen.