Magnetotelluric survey from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide, December 2022 to January 2023
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02062
Abstract:
In this magnetotelluric (MT) survey four stations were acquired near the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide in December 2022 - January 2023. The MT data were acquired with the Phoenix Geophysics Ultra-Wideband Magentotelluric (UMT) system consisting of a 5 channel UMT receiver (MTU-5C), three MTC-150/155 induction sensors and titanium plate electrodes and preamplifiers. The MT stations were acquired to image the resistivity structure of the upper crust beneath WAIS divide as part of the NERC-funded GHOST (Geophysical Habitat of Subglacial Thwaites) project.
This work was funded by NERC standard grant NE/S006672/1.
Citation:
Pearce, R., Borthwick, L., Anandakrishnan, S., Kulessa, B., Killingbeck, S., & Brisbourne, A. (2026). Magnetotelluric survey from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide, December 2022 to January 2023 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/e655503e-ac7b-429e-a4cf-bb32838e28bc
Access Data
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License
| Access: | No restrictions apply. |
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| Use: | Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
Basic Information
| Creation Date: | 2025-05-21 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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Additional Information
| Quality: | Generally good quality data. All phase curves have increased noise at frequencies lower than 0.1 Hz. At WD8, data points should be removed between 2 Hz and 10 Hz due to the introduction of drill noise that saturated the electric channels. | |
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| Lineage/Methodology: | All stations were collected with a crosshair setup. Perpendicular X/Y dipoles were installed with 100 m separation between electrodes, and X, Y and Z-component induction coils were installed in separate quadrants. X and Y components were oriented to geomagnetic north, with a declination of 63 degrees E. Titanium electrodes were buried 50 cm. The Z-component induction coil was buried 150 cm. A grounding spike was used as the ground electrode, and preamplifiers were installed at each dipole electrode. A low-pass filter of 10 kHz was used. The sampling rate was set to sparse - 150 Hz continuous, 24,000 Hz sparse. | |
PROJECT HOME PAGE:
Extent
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2022-12-30 |
| End Date | 2023-01-14 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -79.42397 |
| Northernmost | -79.22508 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -111.968 |
| Easternmost | -111.3643 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Antarctica |
| Detailed Location | West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide |
Instrumentation
| Data Collection: | The equipment used for this project was loaned from the NERC GEF (loan number 1125) and consisted of the Phoenix Geophysics Ultra-Wideband Magentotelluric (UMT) system consisting of a 5 channel UMT receiver (MTU-5C), three MTC-150/155 induction sensors and titanium plate electrodes and preamplifiers. A 100 Ah battery used with 50 W solar panel on Morningstar 10 A regulator was used to power the station. The electrode cables were ~50 m long (see data files for exact length). |
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Storage
| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | 201 kB |
| Distribution Format | ASCII |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | The dataset consists of 4 Electrical Data Interchange (EDI) files (structured ASCII text), one per station. |