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  • Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2581 See the link below for public details on this project. The break-up of Antarctic ice shelves has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the dominant fracture processes occurring within the ice shelves and whether there is any link to climate variability. Using a combination of in-situ (GPS, seismic) and satellite (optical and radar imagery, synthetic aperture radar (SAR)) measurements and airborne ice radar measurements, we will quantify the deformation and fracture processes in different regions on the Amery Ice Shelf, leading to improved fracture mechanics models. GPS measurements were taken across large crevasses in the shear margins on the eastern side of the Amery Ice Shelf, north of Gillock Is. These measurements will give us an opportunity to measure the three dimensional deformation across active fracture zones, leading to a better understanding of fracture processes on ice shelves. Three GPS networks, each network consisting of 4 GPS units in a quadrilateral shape, were measured over the period 17-28 Jan, 2007. These data will be processed during 2007 to compute the deformation and strain across and within the crevassed areas.

  • GPS tag deployments on Snow petrels (Pagodroma nivea) in 2011 from Bechervaise Island, Mawson Coast and Filla Island, Rauer Group, as part of AAS project 2722. Identifying potential threats from a changing environment on snow petrel populations requires understanding key ecological processes and their driving factors. This project focuses on determining driving factors for the species' at-sea distribution and foraging habitat. The data will be linked to spatio-temporally coincident data of biological and physical characteristics of the ecosystem to develop explanatory models and, where possible, predictive models to explore the outcomes of plausible scenarios of future environmental change on snow petrel populations. Tags were deployed on Snow Petrels in the Mawson and Davis areas for tracking purposes. The types of tags used were BAS (British Antarctic Survey) geolocators (Mk18) The GLS data are in hexadecimal format, and will need appropriate software to interpret them.

  • Acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements from a hull mounted 150 kHz narrow band ADCP unit were collected in the Southern Ocean from 1994 to 1999, on the following cruises: au9404, au9501, au9604, au9601, au9701, au9706, au9807 and au9901. The fields in this dataset are: Currents bottom depth cruise number ship speed time velocity GPS

  • Raw GPS and ship motion data collected during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition 2016/2017. Waves in the Southern Ocean are the biggest on the planet. They exert extreme stresses on the coastline of the Sub-Antarctic Islands, which affects coastal morphology and the delicate natural environment that the coastline offers. In Antarctic waters, the sea ice cover reflects a large proportion of the wave energy, creating a complicated sea state close to the ice edge. The remaining proportion of the wave energy penetrates deep into the ice-covered ocean and breaks the ice into relatively small floes. Then, the waves herd the floes and cause them to collide and raft. There is a lack of field data in the Sub-Antarctic and Antarctic Oceans. Thus, wave models are not well calibrated and perform poorly in these regions. Uncertainties relate to the difficulties to model the strong interactions between waves and currents (the Antarctic Circumpolar and tidal currents) and between waves and ice (reflected waves modify the incident field and ice floes affect transmission into the ice-covered ocean). Drawbacks in wave modelling undermine our understanding and ability to protect this delicate ocean and coastal environment. By installing a Wave and Surface Current Monitoring System (WaMoS II, a marine X-Band radar) on the research vessel Akademic Thresnikov and using the meteo-station and GPS on-board, this project has produced a large database of winds, waves and surface currents. Dara were collected during the Antarctic Circmumnavigaion Expedition, which took place from Dec. 2016 to Mar. 2017. The instrumentation operated in any weather and visibility conditions, and at night, monitoring the ocean continuously over the entire Circumnavigation. Records can support 1. the assessment of metocean conditions in the Southern Oceans; and 2. calibration and validation of wave and global circulation models. Data - AAS_4434_ACE_GPS contains basic metereological conditions acquired form the ship’s meteo-station, gepgraphical coordinates (latitude, longitude and altitude) from the ship’s GPS and ship motion data from the ship’s Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). These data are stored as time series with a sampling frequency of 1Hz.

  • WAMOS (marine radar) data collected during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE, https://spi-ace-expedition.ch/), from December 2016 to March 2017. Waves in the Southern Ocean are the biggest on the planet. They exert extreme stresses on the coastline of the Sub-Antarctic Islands, which affects coastal morphology and the delicate natural environment that the coastline offers. In Antarctic waters, the sea ice cover reflects a large proportion of the wave energy, creating a complicated sea state close to the ice edge. The remaining proportion of the wave energy penetrates deep into the ice-covered ocean and breaks the ice into relatively small floes. Then, the waves herd the floes and cause them to collide and raft. There is a lack of field data in the Sub-Antarctic and Antarctic Oceans. Thus, wave models are not well calibrated and perform poorly in these regions. Uncertainties relate to the difficulties to model the strong interactions between waves and currents (the Antarctic Circumpolar and tidal currents) and between waves and ice (reflected waves modify the incident field and ice floes affect transmission into the ice-covered ocean). Drawbacks in wave modelling undermine our understanding and ability to protect this delicate ocean and coastal environment. By installing a Wave and Surface Current Monitoring System (WaMoS II, a marine X-Band radar) on the research vessel Akademic Thresnikov and using the meteo-station and GPS on-board, this project has produced a large database of winds, waves and surface currents. Dara were collected during the Antarctic Circmumnavigaion Expedition, which took place from Dec. 2016 to Mar. 2017. The instrumentation operated in any weather and visibility conditions, and at night, monitoring the ocean continuously over the entire Circumnavigation. Records can support 1. the assessment of metocean conditions in the Southern Oceans; and 2. calibration and validation of wave and global circulation models. Data - AAS_4434_ACE_WAMOS contains sea state conditions monitored continuously with a Wave and Surface Current Monitoring System (WaMoS II), a wave devise based on the marine X-Band radar (see Hessner, K. G., Nieto-Borge, J. C., and Bell, P. S., 2007, Nautical Radar Measurements in Europe: Applications of WaMoS II as a Sensor for Sea State, Current and Bathymetry. In V. Barale, and M. Gade, Sensing of the European Seas, pp. 435-446, Springer). Sea state consists of the directional wave energy spectrum, angular frequency and direction of propagation. Basic parameters such as the significant wave height (a representative measure of the average wave height), the dominant period, wavelength, mean wave direction, etc… were inferred from the wave spectrum. Surface current speed and the concurrent direction were also detected. Post processed data are available anytime the X-Band radar was operated in a range of 1.5NM; a full spectrum was generally obtained evert 20 minutes. Data are subdivided in: - WaMoS II frequency spectrum (1-D spectra) - WaMoS II wave number spectrum (2-D spectra) - WaMoS II frequency direction spectrum (2-D spectra) Data are quality controlled. ************************************************************************************************************** File informations Path to the spectra: \RESULTS\YYYY\MM\DD\HH\ : Year, month, day, hour. space\ : spatial mean results. single\ : raw spectra. mean\ : time averaged files. Header of the spectra: Additional information that might be needed for data analysis is stored in the headers. The output results generated using different WaMoS II software modules are separated by comment lines starting with ‘CC’. All headers are subdivided into: 1) Polar Header: including data acquisition parameters. 2) Car Header: including Cartesian transformation parameters. 3) Wave-Current Analysis Header: including wave and current analysis related parameters. There is a keyword of maximum 5 characters in each line of the header followed by some values and a comment, after the comment marker ‘CC’, describing the keyword. Values of missing parameters are set to -9, -9.0, -99.0, etc. depending on the data type. The 'end of header' keyword 'EOH', indicated the last line of the header section. ******************************************************************* WaMoS II frequency spectrum (1-D spectra): File Name: YYYY : Year. MM : Month. DD : Day. HH : Hour. MM : Minute. SS : Second. rigID : WaMoS II platform’s ID code (3 letters) Suffix: ’*.D1S’ : spatial mean of the spectra (that pass the WaMoS II internal quality control) averaged over WaMoS II analysis areas (up to 9) placed within the radar field of view. ‘*.D1M’ : temporal average spectra calculated using all spectra collected during the past dt=30 minutes of the time specified in the file. Time reference: CPU clock. Data Content: Frequency (f - Hz). Spectral energy (S(f) - m*m/Hz). Mean Wave Direction (MDIR(f) - deg), ���coming from’. Directional Spreading (SPR(f) - deg/Hz). ******************************************************************* WaMoS II wave number spectrum (2-D spectra): File Name: YYYY : Year. MM : Month. DD : Day. HH : Hour. MM : Minute. SS : Second. rigID : WaMoS II platform’s ID code (3 letters) Suffix: ’*.D2S’ : spatial mean of the spectra (that pass the WaMoS II internal quality control) averaged over WaMoS II analysis areas (up to 9) placed within the radar field of view. ‘*.D2M’ : temporal average spectra calculated using all spectra collected during the past dt=30 minutes of the time specified in the file. Time reference: CPU clock. Data Content: Spectral energy (S(kx,ky) - m*m/(Hz*rad)) as a function of wave number (kx and ky - rad/m). Data related header information MATRIX: Size of Matrix. DKX: Spectral resolution in Kx direction (2*Pi/m). DKY: Spectral resolution in Ky direction (2*Pi/m). ******************************************************************* WaMoS II frequency direction spectrum (2-D spectra): File Name: YYYY : Year. MM : Month. DD : Day. HH : Hour. MM : Minute. SS : Second. rigID : WaMoS II platform’s ID code (3 letters) Suffix: ‘*.FTH’ : spatial mean of the spectra (that pass the WaMoS II internal quality control) averaged over WaMoS II analysis areas (up to 9) placed within the radar field of view. ’*.FTM’ : temporal average spectra calculated using all spectra collected during the past dt=30 minutes of the time specified in the file. Time reference: CPU clock. Data Content: Spectral energy (S(f,θ) - m*m/(Hz*rad)) as a function of frequency (f – Hz) and direction (θ - deg). Data information Mf : number of frequency sampling points. Mth : number of direction sampling points. Data Matrix: Row 1 frequency sampling points, Column 1 direction sampling points. The dataset download also includes a file, "Available_Measurements", which is a general calendar that provides the list (day and time) of available measurements.

  • AM01 borehole drilled January 2002 at a height of 65 metres above sea level. GPS data collected in two segments: over 3 days 'static' around 07-Jan-2002, and a short kinematic sequence on 23-Jan-2002. Consult Readme file for detail of data files and formats.

  • AM01b borehole site, drilled at a height of 65 metres above sea level. Small amount of static GPS data at each of four sites in a 500 m x 500 m square strain grid. Consult Readme file for detail of data files and formats.

  • The data sets consist of static GPS data collected on the Amery Ice Shelf using Leica CRS1000 receivers. Additional data at Landing Bluff, Dalton Corner and Beaver Lake were collected by ANU (see ASAC project 1112). All data are provided in UNIX Z compressed RINEX (Receiver INdependent EXchange) format, as described in the IGS standards - see http://www.igs.org/products The standard RINEX file naming convention is used, i.e., an eight digit file name as bbbbddds.yyt, where bbbb refers to a four digit station name, ddd refers to the day number of the year, s refers to a session number and yyt is the file extension number where yy refers to the year and t defines the file type (o for observation file and n for navigation file). All files are compressed using the UNIX Z compression scheme, as shown by the extension .Z. For example, base0010.00o.Z and base0010.00n.Z. The files are set out in the following directories on the ftp site: season1999_2000 \amery \land \raw Data are also available for download from the Australian Antarctic Data Centre at the provided URL. Raw data, where available, is stored in the aw directory in standard Leica LB2 Binary format. Conversion routines are available: http://www.unavco.org/software/software.html GPS data collected at the permanent stations at Casey, Davis and Mawson are available from Geoscience Australia (previously AUSLIG) - see http://www.ga.gov.au/geodesy/antarc/antgps.jsp The fields in this dataset are: GPS marker number marker name observer/agency approximate position antenna wavelength interval

  • Introduction The purpose of the 97/98 Antarctic survey season was to provide survey control and vertical and oblique aerial photography around Mawson, Davis, Beaver Lake, and the Prince Charles Mountains in support of the ANARE mapping program as well as providing survey support for other ANARE science programs. The following team carried out this survey work: Christopher Watson - Antarctic Division Volunteer Surveyor, John Hyslop - LANDINFO Surveyor. Project Outline The Antarctic Division's Brief to Surveyors which outlines the details of the program is included in Appendix A. The survey program for Antarctica 97/8 was divided into two main areas of interest. Mawson station from Voyage 2 to 4 which included photo control of offshore islands, aerial photography of penguin colonies with the Linhof camera, Mawson tide gauge network and updating the station map. Davis station from Voyage 4 to 5 which included aerial photography of the Rauer Group and Larsemann Hills, aerial photography and tide gauge work at Beaver Lake, and vertical and oblique aerial photography in the Southen Prince Charles Mountains. Also photo control at Scullin and Murray Monoliths and photography at Mount Brown, Mirny offshore island and features between Mirny and Davis. At Davis station surveys included Station detail surveys tide gauge connections and lake water levels in the Vestfold Hills. At Casey station during V2 stop over survey work was requested at the wharf area, levelling and detail survey updates. Recommendations: Aerial photography. The following suggestions are made. 1. The flight program be upgraded to allow a digital map to be shown on the screen. 2. The pilots display did not work in the helicopter and the problem needs to be fixed. I suspect it may have been due to the setting in the flight program. I had difficulty understanding what all the settings meant and perhaps more documentation may help. 3. Because of 2. more reliance was placed on the air crew navigating from the monitor and hence felt the need for more control over the display eg. Zooming in and out and run selection. 4. A video drift sight would be a great advantage. If this were somehow attached directly to the camera there would be more room and less leads involved. 5. Some of the film spools were too tight on the cogged drive shaft. At Beaver Lake when loading film in a black camera bag in the helicopter I had to wind the new film onto another spool that would fit. The spools need to be checked. Logistics. The need to return the helicopter to Davis each day seems to me to be an extremely expensive requirement. To get to the Southern Prince Charles Mountains is an eight hour return trip. 11 hour flying is about all the pilots can do in a day which does not leave much time for productive work. We did have an opportunity to do aerial photography on the way but on the two days we went to the PCMs we decided to make the first priority the main destination and hope for time on the return trip, but each occasion we were too late and returned by the most direct route. I could not help thinking how much more work we could have done if the helicopters had been based at Beaver Lake for a few days. There were also days when the weather was fine and suitable for flying in the PCMs but we could not leave Davis through bad weather on the way. This method of operation also understandably placed pressures on using the helicopters to the fullest. The last days flying in the PCMs was done with 4 people in the back of the S76. We then were asked if we could take 300kg of equipment back from a Mawson Escarpment camp. That made photographic operation a bit cramped but by then the weather was against further photography. I felt that through Joe Johnson, station leader and Jim Wilson, chief pilot we got excellent support for the photographic program but with the S76 deployed in the area of operation we could have achieved a lot more.

  • Taken from sections of the report: This report has been prepared as a supplement to the 1997/98 Survey Report by John Hyslop and contains solely comments and recommendations as seen from the perspective of the volunteer survey student. It is hoped this report may be of some use in the future planning and operation of Surveying and Mapping expeditions to Antarctica. The report has been divided according to each area visited and discusses the work achieved and highlights any possible improvements either in the actual surveys undertaken or the execution of the program as a whole. Typical issues include helicopter operations, aerial photography, the oblique mount, collaboration with other field parties, transportation and so on. VOYAGE SOUTH The voyage south provided the ideal opportunity to begin the detailed planning of the work to come. Flight planning for the photography was started and locations for photo control throughout the offshore islands at Mawson were determined. It was important to prioritize which work was to be undertaken first throughout the offshore islands at Mawson. This was to ensure the most important work was completed before the sea ice deteriorated and prevented travel on quads. The voyage to Mawson went via Casey where the surveyors were required to undertake a small amount of work during the stop over. Ice conditions prevented the Aurora reaching Casey. John and I were unable to make it to Casey due to the long fly off and limited time. Ian Sutherland (Station Leader at Casey) informed us that snow conditions over the station would have prevented most survey work anyway. This was the perfect example that survey work in Antarctica is totally dependent on current weather conditions in addition to the 'A' factor. This highlighted the fact that all plans for work in the Antarctic are required to be 'dynamic' and hence the various priorities listed in the brief were appreciated. It was quite frustrating spending close to 4 weeks on the Aurora before arriving on the continent and beginning the work proper. The frustration culminated in the problem with the Aurora's rudder and expeditioners being told we may be returning to Australia even though we were within fly-off distance to Mawson.