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SCAR GIANT PROGRAM MEETING - 30 June 1995

Minutes of the GIANT program meeting of the SCAR Working Group on Geodesy and Geographic Information, USGS Astrogeology Office Flagstaff , Arizona.USA.

Attendance :

	Jerry L. Mullins	US Geological Survey Reston USA
	Gordon H. Shupe	US Geological Survey Reston USA
	Hugh Kieffer	US Geological Survey Flagstaff USA
	Jeffrey S. Kargel	US Geological Survey Flagstaff USA
	Dave McAdoo	NOAA/Geosciences Silver Springs USA
	Lars E .Sjoberg	Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden
	Don Grant	Dept Survey &Land Information, Wellington,NZ
	Reinhard Dietrich	University of Technology.Dresden, FRG
	Hans W. Schenke	Alfred Wegner Institut, Bremerhaven, FRG
	John Manning	AUSLIG, Canberra, Australia

Addresses of participants is given in Annex A

1. Welcome to the USGS Flagstaff Office

Dr Kargel welcomed the group on behalf of the USGS, outlined the work activities undertaken at the Flagstaff field office, and made arrangements for a short inspection tour later in the afternoon.

2. Introduction to Antarctic Program

Mr Mullins outlined the SCAR program and invited each representative to give a brief summary of current geodetic activities and to indicate plans for next season.

3. Objectives of the Meeting

Mr Manning outlined the overall objectives and the participative nature of the meeting. He stressed the importance of interaction between the SCAR WG meetings to review progress and consider new developments to be raised at the formal WG meeting.

4. Overview of SCAR GPS campaigns

Mr Manning briefly outline the history of the early SCAR Epoch GPS field campaigns as :
• 1988 acceptance by SCAR to run a trial GPS campaign to test the feasibility of applying this new technology to continental crustal motion surveys.

• SCAR pilot project 15-22 January 1990, ties observed from four Antarctica sites to the Australian continent using WM102 and Trimble4000 GPS receivers

• SCAR EPOCH 91 campaign, six Antarctic sites (Trimble 4000 SST receivers) in conjunction with the global GIG 91 campaign, sessions 22 Jan -14 February 1992

• SCAR EPOCH 92 campaign, sessions 1-10 January, 16-22 January and 21-26 February 1992, twelve Antarctic sites (Trimble 4000 SST and AshtechLD X11)

• SCAR EPOCH 93 Minor field observational campaign at key sites O'Higgins, Mawson, Syowa and McMurdo, observational session 12-31 January

• 1993/94 Summer, establishment of permanent GPS receivers Mawson , Casey, Davis and new site at McMurdo

At the SCAR XXIII meeting in Rome WG-GGI members agreed to make the epoch data from past GPS campaigns available to other researchers. A primary data set is held at University of Canberra and an offsite archive is being built at AUSLIG Canberra. So far the data from the epoch campaigns have been primarily used by Dr P Morgan to compute positions and vectors for the Antarctic sites.

Discussion took place on the benefit in assembling a complete accessible archive of these early GPS epoch campaigns to encourage use of the data by researchers to compute independent results. In addition to data from the epoch campaigns, Mr Mullins added that GPS data from the South Pole station for a number of periods was archived at USGS Reston and was available for research use.

5. SCAR EPOCH 95 GPS Campaign

5.1 Overview
Prof. Dietrich reported that the project was progressing to plan and tabled a status report [Annex C].

A delay had been encountered in receiving data from the Great Wall station but the full data set was being assembled and about 70% of the data had been collated so far. The following five groups would then analyse the data using different software approaches ie:

• University of Hanover - GEONAP

• Technical University of Braunschweig - TOPAS, GEONAP

• Institut of Karlsruhe University - BERNESE

• Technical University of Dresden - BERNESE

• IFAG Liepsig - GIPSY, BERNESE

The results would be presented at SCAR Cambridge in 1996.

5.2 Field campaign
Dr Schenke described the field operations concerning the Russian-German marine geophysical investigations and the establishment of the geodetic reference network along the Antarctic peninsula carried out from the RV "Akademik Boris Petrov". Fifteen points (including two at Palmer) had been observed using Trimble receivers, the sites were :
Gibbs Island, 20km south of Elephant Island
Signy
Jubany
Atruro Pratt
O'Higgins
Esperenza
Great Wall
Marambio
Punta Spring
Rothera
Fossil Bluff
San Martin
Palmer (one recvr on BC4 and one new point)

Elephant Island was found to be an unsuitable site , and two sites had been observed at Palmer as the BC4 site was in use as a base station for local biology (Dr Ray Smith).

Links to tide gauges had been made at a number of sites :

Signy
Esperanza (NOAA)
O Higgins (problem encountered)
Jubany (10 days only)
Rothera (Bidston)
Palmer
Marambio
San Martin

In addition activities in Schmirmacher Oasis and at Georg Forster station were:
• GPS observations at a new marker at the Russian station Novolazarevskaya (Forster station of the SCAR Epoch95 campaign
• pressure tide gauge measurements at the nearby epi-shelf lake
• measurements of height changes of ice at two traverses
• gravimeter measurements of earth tides at the station

The meeting complimented Germany on the success of the field campaign and looked forward to seeing the results of the analysis at the Cambridge meeting, perhaps as a special symposium session.

Reference to some publications arising from SCAR EPOCH Campaigns

6. SCAR EPOCH 96 Campaign

Prof. Dietrich said that a SCAR EPOCH 96 campaign supplementary to EPOCH95 is planned for January 20- February 1, 1996 and all countries had been notified and invited to participate. He had received positive responses so far from eight countries as listed below and was looking for access to a number of Trimble receivers for the campaign and would also talk to Norway and South Africa about the possibility of occupying Grunehogna.
• Liz Morris BAS, at Hag Nunatak, Trimble operated by BAS
  
• Gino Cassassa, Punta Arenas, INACh Trimble operated by INACH
  
• Andres Zakrajzek Antarctic Institute, Esperenza, Marambio, Trimble
  
• Germany :
  
  Jubany, Trimble, tide gauge
  Station in the Kottas Mountain Range, Ashtech Z-12
  
• Finland, within the EPICA program, one reference station probably at Grunehogna or Troll station
  
• Additionally data would be available from the permanent receivers for the campaign

Activities planned for the next summer at the Forster station included :
• GPS observations at the Russian station Novolazarevskaya (Forster station of the SCAR Epoch95 campaign)
• installation of new GPS points with markers in the mountain range south of Schirmacher Oasis with GPS observations (the number of these stations will depend on the logistic means available)

7. History of Permanent GPS Stations

Mr Manning spoke of the desirability to have information on past SCAR GPS campaigns, WG programs, sites and data holdings readily available by electronic access. He noted the importance of data archives but stressed that information about these archives should be available on the INTERNET WWW.

In addition to access to the data from the SCAR EPOCH GPS campaigns of temporary occupations, the trend world wide was to establish permanent GPS trackers. This was the case in Antarctica and Rogue receivers were now operating at the following sites :

McMurdo
Mawson
Davis
Casey
Syowa
O Higgins
Macquarie Island
Kerguelen Island

These sites become the core sites for linking continuing epoch campaigns and it is important to publicise details of at each site to eliminate confusion, for example three sites had been used at Mawson for Epoch surveys but only one permanent location had been used. At McMurdo four different sites had been used for long term observations.

To clarify the situation at McMurdo, Mr Shupe gave an illustrated presentation of the history of the McMurdo GPS sites and also the Ashtech receivers at the South Pole.

The meeting agreed that a geodetic information outlet should be put up on the WWW possibly under a SCAR Working Group on Geodesy and Geographic Information home page. It was considered timely to prepare a full history of the permanent GPS sites and to identify access to data being collected and archived.

8. Geodetic Ground control database for image mapping

Dr Keiffer described problems which he had encountered with the digital mosaicing of satellite imagery over Antarctica and how other researchers were preparing a 1: 1 million coverage of the glaciers around the Antarctic coast (eg Swithinbank). The accuracy requirement was about two metres and he would like all survey points identified on satellite imagery for that purpose in a continental data base which could then be used in an automated manner to control digital imagery.

The meeting was sympathetic but indicated that at this stage the focus on the GIANT program was to establish a geodetic infrastructure of precise points around the Antarctic continent at the sub metre level. This would then be used to bring all surveys onto the one datum or reference frame. Such an integration of surveys was still a long way into the future. At this stage each nation held its own geodetic records and image or photo idents for ground survey points were usually made so that the information could be used for mapping. In some areas it would now be possible to use photogrammetric points to produce good image points such as with the recent GPS controlled aerial photography of the dry valley areas by the co-operative USA/NZ projects.

Dr Kieffer distributed a proposal outline which he had submitted to NASA seeking support to establish a Polar Ground Control Point Library consisting of digital image chips surrounding a survey control point. The meeting indicated that the GIANT program was one of a number of programs undertaken by the Working Group on Geodesy an Geographic Information and that Dr Joern Sievers was the convenor of a similar program looking at the use of satellite imagery in Antarctica. Mr Manning said he would correspond with Dr Sievers initially as he is the appropriate person for Dr Kieffer to discuss his proposal.

9. Absolute Gravity Program

Prof Sjoberg and Mr Manning presented the current overall position with absolute gravity measurements in Antarctica as :
• Terra Nova Bay (Italy) JILA, 1991
• ABOA (Finland) JILAG-5, 1993
• Syowa (JAPAN) Hanada and Shoubek meters 1993, FG5 1995.

Mr Mullins introduced Dr D. McAdoo, chief Geodynamics Branch of the NOAA Geosciences Laboratory who was arranging to take a FG5 to the McMurdo area in the 1995/96 summer. Dr McAdoo proposed observations at a number of sites to minimise the disadvantages of the immediate McMurdo base area, possible sites were :

• Cape Roberts (in conjunction with NZ)
• Marble Point
• Terra Nova Bay (reoccupation of Italian absolute site)
• An inland site on bedrock away from the influence of the McMurdo sound.

Dr Grant pointed out the desirability of observing at least one site in New Zealand during transit of the instrument through New Zealand. Mr Manning also raised the possibility of flying it across the Tasman to the VLBI/GPS site in Hobart.

10. Geodetic Connections to gravity sites and tide gauges

Unresolved gravity/geoid related problems exist in the Antarctic peninsula and in east Antarctica. Prof Dietrich showed an anomaly of 10-15metres in OSU91 in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula as observed in the EPOCH 95 campaign. The meeting supported the need for more tide gauges and absolute gravity sites around Antarctica to provide a uniform datum for relative gravity and with the new wave of FG5 meters now becoming more widely available it was considered timely to address this issue. However as not all nations were purchasing absolute gravity meters a co-operative program would be needed. There was need also for careful archive of data and electronic access to key information on absolute gravity sites.

Mr Manning later circulated Table 1 as a draft Absolute Gravity program and invited comment.

Table 1

Year	Site	Type	Country
1995/96	McMurdo Base	FG5	USA
	Terra Nova Bay	FG5	USA
	Cape Roberts	FG5	USA
	Marble Point	FG5	USA
	Inland site	FG5	USA
1996/97	O'Higgins	FG5	FRG/USA
	Palmer	FG5	FRG/USA
	Rothera	FG5	FRG/USA
	Fossil Bluff	FG5	FRG/USA
1997/98	Mawson	FG5	Australia/USA?
	Casey/Davis
	ZhongShan/Law
1998/99	Russian bases	FG5	Russia/??
	Molodezhnaya
	Mirny
1999/2000	Reobservations
	Syowa	FG5	Japan
	Aboa		Finland
	McMurdo	FG5	USA

Draft Target Absolute Gravity Program

11. Meeting Summary

Mr Manning summarised the outcomes of the meeting which in particular identified :
• the success of the EPOCH95 field campaign

• the need for accessible archives of SCAR epoch GPS data

• the need for information on the WG programs to be placed on the WWW

• the need for an absolute gravity program arising from the success of the FG5 meter

• the possibility of a special symposium on GPS results at the SCAR meeting in 1996

In closing he thanked the USGS, Jerry Mullins and Dr Kargel, as hosts for providing excellent facilities and for attendees participation in what was a very cooperative meeting.

12. Actions Arising

• Australia to continue to build archival data base of SCAR epoch campaigns 1990-1993

• Germany to continue to establish a data archive for epoch 95 and epoch 96 campaigns

• Australia and Germany to work on common approaches to data archive and access

• Australia and USA to prepare historical notes on permanent GPS sites for publication

• Australia to consider creating a WWW home page for the WG GGI

• Australia to compute periodic computations from permanent GPS data sites

• Germany to analyse epoch 95 results and consider special symposium session at SCAR Cambridge

• Australia to circulate target Absolute Gravity program to WG members for comment

• WG to continue dialogue with IHO to put information on Antarctic tide gauge sites on the WWW

• Minutes of the Flagstaff meeting to be circulated to all members of the working group

John Manning
25 July1995

Annex A

Participants Flagstaff SCAR WG GGI meeting 1 July 1995

L.E Sjoberg	Royal Institute of Technology	+ 486 79990007330 fax7343
	Stockholm, Sweden	sjoberg@l.kth.se
Don Grant	Dept Survey & Land Information,	+64 4 495 8403 fax 8450
	Wellington,NZ	don@hh.dosli.govt.nz
Dave McAdoo	NOAA/Geosciences Silver Springs, MD	+301 713 2860
		dave@comet.grdl.noaa.gov
Reinhard Dietrich	University of Technology.	49351463 4652 fax7106
	Institute of Planetary Geodesy	dietrich @kpgrs1.geo.tu-dresden.de
	Dresden, FRG
Hans W Schenke	Alfred Wegner Institut	+49 471 4831 222 fax149
	POB 120161
	L7515 Bremerhavem, FRG	schenke@awi-bremerhaven.de
Gordon H Shupe	US Geological Survey	703 648 4661
	510 National Center
	Reston VA 22092	gshupe@usgs.gov
Hugh Kieffer	US Geological Survey	520 556 7015 fax 7014
	2255 N. Gemini Dr.
	Flagstaff, AZ 86001	hkeiffer@altair.wr.usgs.gov
Jeffrey S Kargel	US Geological Survey	520 556 7034 fax 7014
	2255 N. Gemini Dr.
	Flagstaff, AZ 86001	jkargel@iflag2.wr.usgs.gov
Jerry L Mullins	US Geological Survey	703 648 5144
	12201 Sunrise Valley Dr
	Reston, VA 22092	jmullins@usgs.gov
John Manning	AUSLIG	+616 2014 352 fax 366
	PO Box 2 Belconnen
	Canberra ACT Australia 2617	John.Manning@ga.gov.au

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Annex B

Some Publications arising from SCAR EPOCH campaigns

Morgan, P., and Tiesler, R. ,1991, First Epoch GPS Baselines Between Australia &: Antarctica, January 1990, Aust. J. Geod. Photo. Surv., 55: 55-66.

Manning, J., Morgan, P.J., and Murphy, B. , 1992, Antarctica, Where is it and Where is it Going?, Australian Surveyor, 37(1): 1-8.

Manning, J., and Morgan, P.J. , 1992, The use of Geodetic Reference Frames in Antarctica Paper presented at special symposium on Geodesy at the Twenty Second Meeting of The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research, Bariloche, Argentina, June 1992, 6pp.

Manning, J., and Morgan, P.J. , 1992, An Analysis of SCAR GPS Data, Paper presented at special symposium on Geodesy at the Twenty Second Meeting of The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research, Bariloche, Argentina, June 1992, 11 pp.

Morgan, P.J., Tiesler, R., Manning, J., Murphy, B., and Hendy, M. , 1992, The Scientific Committee for Antarctica GPS Project, Proc. of National Conference on GPS Surveying, Univ. of NSW, Sydney, NSW, June 25-26, 17pp.

Morgan, P.J. , 1994 The Role of GPS in Antarctica, Proc. of FIG 1994 General Assembly, Melbourne, March 1994, pp 12.

Morgan P.J., Tiesler, R., Coleman, R., and Hendy, M. , 1994, The Global Reference Frame, in the Southern Hemisphere, EOS Supplement, 75(44), 183.

Ananga, N., Coleman, R. Morgan, P. and Rizos, C. 1994 Vertical crustal movement determinations of Antarctic GPS Sites, Proc. of First Turkish International Symposium on Deformations, Instanbul, Turkey September 5-9, 1994.

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Annex C

SCAR WG GGI

Program GIANT

Subprogram EPOCH CAMPAIGNS

Status Report on SCAR EPOCH 95 GPS Campaign

1. The observations were performed from January 20 - February 10, 1995. The field operations were very successful. Including reference stations on the southern hemisphere there participated 31 stations.

2. All data and the Station Reports responsive will be archived at

Address:	Technische Universitat Dresden
	Institut for Planetare Geodasie
	D-01062 Dresden
	Germany
Phone:	+49 351 463 4652
Fax:	+49 351 463 7063
E-Mail:	dietrich@kpgnts.geo.tu-dresden.de

3. An overview on stations and status of each station in the data archive is summarized in Enclosure 1.

4. The data are free available for all participants. Access to the archive is described in Enclosure 2.

5. A SCAR EPOCH 96 SUPPLEMENT Campaign is planned for the observation period January 20 - February 10, 1996. Up to now positive response has come from Australia, China, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan and (probably) Argentina, France, Norway.

6. According to the plan of the SCAR WG GGI the data analysis for the 95 Campaign shall be finished in 1996 with a presentation at SCAR Meeting in Cambridge/U.K.

Reinhard Dietrich
Scientific Coordinator

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Enclosure 1.

Overview on stations in the data archive

				Documentation	Data available
No	Station Name	4-ID	2-ID	available	Raw data	RINEX data
1	Santiago	SAN1	SA	x	x	x
2	Hartebeesthoek	HART1	HA	x	x	x
3	MacQuarie Island	MAC1	MQ
4	O'Higgins	OHG1	OH		x	x
5	Syowa	SYO1	SY
6	Belgrano II	BEL1	BE	only station report	x	x
7	Forster	FOR1	FO	x	x	x
8	Mawson	MAW	MW
9	Casey	CAS1	CA
10	Dumont d'Urville	DUM1	DU	x		x
11	Falkland	FAL1	FA	x	x	x
12	Signy	SIG1	SI		x	x
13	Dallman	DAL1	DA		x	x
14	Arturo Prat	PRA1	PR	only station report	x	x
15	Marambio	MAR1	MA		x	x
16	Punta Spring	SPR1	SP	only station report	x	x
17	Palmer	PAL1	PA	x	x	x
18	Rothera	ROT1	RO		x	x
19	SanMartin	SMR1	SM	only station report	x	x
20	Fossil Bluff	FOS1	FB		x	x
21	Curitiba	CUR1	CU	x	x	x
22	Punta Arenas	PUN1	PU	x	x	x
23	Elephant Island	ELE1	EL		x	x
24	Rio Grande	RIG1	RI	x	x	x
25	Esperanza	ESP1	ES		x	x
26	Notter Point	NOT1	NP	only station report	x	x
27	LaPlata	LPA1	LP
28	Great Wall	GRW1	GW
29	Artigas	ART1	AR	x	x	x
30	Montevideo	MON1	MO	x		x

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Enclosure 2

Access to the data archive for the SCAR EPOCH 95 GPS Campaign

Data center:	Institut fur Planetare Geodasie
	Technische Universitat Dresden
	Germany
Data base manager:	Dipl.-Ing. Dach, Dipl.-Phys. Metzig
	Phone: +49 351 463 2854
	Fax: +49 351 463 7063
	Mail: dach@kpgnts.geo.tu-dresden.de
	metzig@kpgnts.geo.tu-dresden .de
Internet address:	141.30.132.33
	kpgnts.geo.tu-dresden.de
Username:	scar95
Password:	ant&arctica
Directories:	/scar95
	Directory containing the data of SCAR 95
	Epoch GPS Campaign
	/incoming
	Directory where you can upload files (max. 100 MB)

Please note!

• All your activities will be logged.

• In the time from 6:00 to 18:00 UTC the number of users is limited to 2, in the time from 18:00 to 6:00 UTC there are 5 users allowed.

• All data files are binary. Please use the command bin before you start the data transfer with ftp.

Directory structure of the data base

Directory/scar95

File STATIONS.TXT:

Station name
Owner of the station
Observer
Which data are available

File CONTENTS.TXT:
Table with the actual contents of the data base (for which stations are data available for the days)

File TREE.TXT:
Directory structure
Structure of file names

File DIR.TXT:
Contents of all directories and subdirectories

Directory obs/'ddd':
Observation files for the day 'ddd'

Directory obs/ecc:
Observations for eccentricity measurements

Directory obs/notes:
Additional information for some stations

Data compression:
compress/uncompress (UNIX-standard command)