Subsequently, with Bäbler and Arnold Heim, he ascended the Karajak Nunataks to survey the glaciers for comparison with observations by Erich von Drygalski 16 years earlier.

[4] In 1911, the year in which Switzerland's first earthquake surveillance station at Degenried was inaugurated, he additionally became director of the Seismological Service.

Together with Hans Hoessly, Roderich Fick, and Karl Gaule, he crossed the inland ice sheet from west to east using dog sledges and skis.

They traversed about 640 km in total, establishing an altitude profile of Greenland significantly further north than Fridtjof Nansen's from 1888.

[5] De Quervain had an important part in constructing the Jungfraujoch research station, which was completed only after his death from a stroke in 1927.