Why I'm going to Antarctica...

I guess the first thing I should deal with in this blog is how I'm getting to go to Antarctica..

Well, I'm lucky enough to work for Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), doing geospatial work- predominantly Geodetic related stuff. As NZ has a territorial claim in the Antarctic (the Ross Dependency), LINZ plays an active role in the surveying, mapping, and charting of this area. The field work that we do only covers the surveying and mapping parts, altho I did do some work for the charts when I was in the hydro area :-)

So, we send down a couple of people each year to complete survey work in the Ross Sea area. One of our key activities is to maintain the Ross Sea Region Geodetic Datum.. To do this we complete GPS surveys, install new continuously operating GPS receivers (we currently have 3 down there), and remove old survey beacons. These survey beacons aren't needed anymore, and can become environmental hazards as they are large metal drums, stacked two or three high, and filled with rocks. 

We also calibrate the two NZ tide gauges- one at Scott Base, and one at Cape Roberts. This enables the values from the gauges to be combined year on year, so that long term sea-level changes can be determined..

Another job we undertake is the monitoring of the historic huts at Cape Royds and Cape Evans. these were built by Shackleton and Scott respectively, and are now being restored by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. So we monitor them to determine if they're rising or falling from ice buildup and melting.. Pretty interesting stuff..

Obviously a lot of science takes place in Antarctica, and something that really helps the scientists is accurate mapping data so that they know where they're doing their science! So I've been working on a project to do some new mapping in the Darwin-Hatherton Glacier region. This is to support the Latitudinal Gradient Project which is currently in that area. As part of this mapping project, we need to survey some control points to tie the mapping data to its real-world position, so we get to chopper round the place surveying rocks that we can identify in the images! Tough life eh..

And finally, there are a lot of odds & ends survey tasks around the base that we complete.. For instance, last season, the guys did some work for the new wind turbines that are to be installed so that Scott Base and McMurdo Station decrease their reliance on oil and gas..

So yeah, a bit of a roundup on what we do down there.. No doubt I'll go into more detail about everything when I'm actually down there..