The Future of Antarctic Airborne Geophysical Capabilites Workshop in Colorado, August 2002

Geological Survey, United States Dept Of, Reston VA

Investigators

Abstract

0135270 Finn This award, provided by the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), provides support for a workshop designed to explore the future aerogeophysical needs of the Antarctic community. A new airborne geophysical facility needs to be developed for the Antarctic Program so that key scientific questions, ranging from crustal structure and tectonics to ice sheet structure and glacial dynamics, can be addressed in all regions of Antarctica. Interest from the scientific community to study remote areas of East and West Antarctica as well as look in detail at areas around exposed rocks require consideration of airborne platforms such as long-range aircraft (C-130's, P-3) or helicopters in addition to the Twin Otter. New instrumentation, such as swath-mapping systems for high-resolution (1 m) airborne mapping of topography and imaging spectometers (AVIRIS), has recently been developed. The loss of the SOAR facility leaves the U.S. Antarctic program without a means to remotely map sub-ice geology as well as ice sheet characteristics, thus limiting the ability to address fundamental questions in Antarctic geology and glaciology. A workshop tying the NSF Antarctic program goals and science targets identified in previous workshops to the development of new airborne geophysics capabilities could result in a focused program to combine broad science goals with the appropriate airborne geophysical tools and platforms. This award will support a workshop that will help define the type of airborne geophysical facility (instruments and platforms) most useful for the Antarctic Earth Science and Glaciology communities to use to address important science issues in key target areas.