Extending the South American Meridional B-field Array (SAMBA) to auroral latitudes in Antarctica

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will extend an existing chain of ground-based magnetometers (SAMBA = South American Meridional B-field Array) into Antarctica. Two additional magnetometers will be emplaced, one at Palmer, a year-round U.S. station, and the other at Patriot Hills, a more remote Chilean summer-only station. The installation at Patriot Hills will be done with the logistical support of the Chilean Antarctic Institute. The scientific goals of the expanded array are to increase the spatial resolution of existing cusp-to-cusp chains, to extend the number of conjugate pairs of stations between the northern and southern hemisphere thus increasing the size of the inner magnetospheric region that can be remotely monitored from the two hemispheres, and to establish an auroral latitude station conjugate to the Canadian Poste de la Baleine station in order to study conjugate differences of substorms and general auroral activity.