GPS and Radar survey of the nearby crack

Michal Krzysztofowicz
Mon, 03 Oct 2016 22:12:16 +0100

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Each month the team at Halley has to conduct a detailed GPS and GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) survey of a crack in the ice shelf, to asses how fast it expands. This is as part of the Halley Relocation Project, which aims to move the Halley station some 25 km east, on the safe side of the crack that has started expanding recently, and which if continues to do so, may cause the part of the Brunt Ice Shelf which Halley VI currently is located on to carve off in a few years time. The idea of the project is to move the station to the new site in a controlled manner, before any of the crack development poses any risk to Halley.

In the image Halley Electronics Engineer Ricardo is installing a GPS monitoring station on a glacial pole at one of the designated sites to take accurate GPS coordinates reading. Later on, the data from multiple GPS stations like the one in the image will be correlated with the radar survey and the exact ice shelf movements will be calculated, to see if the ice shelf behaves in the expected way.