COLDEX VHF MARFA: Antarctic Ice Sheet Radargrams from 2022-2024 Airborne Surveys

COLDEX VHF MARFA Open Polar Radar radargrams were collected by the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 airborne field seasons. The dataset contains processed radargram images designed for non-expert access, organized by survey transects across Antarctica between Dome A and the South Pole Station. The science goal was to characterize the ice sheet to locate sites for drilling a mid-Pleistocene ice core.

Use Cases

• Mapping ice thickness and bedrock topography based on radar-derived englacial structure.
• Analyzing ice sheet internal layering and stratigraphy for paleoclimate studies based on radargram imagery.
• Identifying potential ice core drilling sites based on characterized bed conditions and ice thickness.
• Training machine learning models for automated feature detection in geophysical radar images.

Strengths

• Data collected over two field seasons (2022/23 and 2023/24) providing temporal coverage.
• Surveys cover a significant area, with flights up to 800 km from South Pole Station.
• Images are processed for 25 m along-track sampling, suggesting consistent spatial resolution.
• Dataset is organized by a defined nomenclature (P/S/T) for systematic access to transects.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The raw data volume (3 TB) indicates significant storage and processing requirements.

Provenance

Source

Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) Science and Technology Center, data deposited at the USAP data center.

Collection Method

Airborne surveys using a VHF radar system on the Basler C-FMKB aircraft, with data processed using the CReSIS Synthetic Aperture Radar Processor (CSARP).

Time Range

2022/23 to 2023/24 field seasons.

Freshness

Last updated 2025-10-15 06:35:43; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Antarctica, specifically the region between Dome A and Amundsen Scott South Pole Station.