NASA 2008 AN UTIG Project: Antarctic Airborne Geophysical Survey Data

Airborne geophysical survey data collected over Antarctica, including vertical acceleration, free air gravity anomalies, radar echo strength, ice thickness, and surface elevation measurements. The data were gathered by scientists working on the ICECAP project, funded by the NSF and NERC with support from NASA Operation IceBridge. The dataset is hosted on AWS Open Data and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Use Cases

• Modeling ice sheet thickness and bed topography based on radar echo strength and elevation measurements.
• Analyzing gravitational anomalies to infer subglacial geology and crustal structure.
• Calibrating satellite altimetry and gravity models with in-situ airborne gravity data.
• Studying ice sheet mass balance and evolution using integrated geophysical profiles.

Strengths

• Data originates from a major international scientific project (ICECAP) involving NASA, NSF, and NERC.
• Contains multiple complementary geophysical measurements (gravity, radar, pressure) for the same survey lines.
• Licensed under the permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for broad reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

ICECAP project (International Collaborative Exploration of the Cryosphere through Airborne Profiling / Investigating the Cryospheric Evolution of the Central Antarctic Plate), funded by NSF, NERC, and NASA Operation IceBridge.

Collection Method

Airborne data collection using BGM-3 Gravimeter, Hi-Capability Radar Sounder (HiCARS), and Paroscientific Digiquartz Transmitter.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Antarctica