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Airborne gravity data over Marguerite Bay collected with a Windracers Ultra UAV (2023/24 season)

Airborne gravity data provides insight into the regional subsurface geology and tectonic history. This dataset includes processed airborne data collected over Marguerite Bay using an iCorous strapdown gravity sensor. The gravity sensor was mounted in a Windracers Ultra UAV, serial TD-02. Gravity data was collected at a mean altitude of 500 m on nine flights between 120 and 260 km long, originating from Rothera Research Station. The flight pattern covered an area of 24 km by 75 km, with lines spaced 2 km apart. Data has an along line resolution of ~2 km. The survey targeted a tectonic break between different sectors of the Antarctic Peninsula identified in existing magnetic data. The survey was flown as part of the Innovate UK SWARM project demonstrating the utility of the Windracers Ultra as a platform for environmental science.





This study was funded by Innovate UK through their Future flight challenge support for the "Protecting environments with unmanned aerial vehicle swarms" project (reference: 10023377). We thank BAS operations for their support and specifically the BAS air unit and ground support staff whose close cooperation and engagement with the UAV deployment made the project successful. We also thank staff at Windracers and Distributed avionics who provided remote support for UAV operations across the field season.

Simple

Date (Creation)
2024-10-15
Date (Revision)
2024-10-15
Date (Publication)
2024-10-15
Date (released)
2024-10-15
Edition

1.0

Unique resource identifier
https://doi.org/10.5285/3a9c8604-2bca-48c1-a40c-48a873076581
Codespace

doi

Unique resource identifier
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01922
Codespace

https://data.bas.ac.uk/

Other citation details

Please cite this item as: Jordan, T., Robinson, C., Reed, T., & Toomey, R. (2024). Airborne gravity data over Marguerite Bay collected with a Windracers Ultra UAV (2023/24 season) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/3a9c8604-2bca-48c1-a40c-48a873076581

Credit

No credit.

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role
British Antarctic Survey Jordan, Tom Author
British Antarctic Survey

Robinson, Carl

Author

Distributed Avionics

Reed, Tom

Author

Windracers

Toomey, Rebecca

Author
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre

PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk

Point of contact
Maintenance and update frequency
As needed
Maintenance note
Completed
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Solid Earth > Geodetics/Gravity > Gravity
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Solid Earth > Geodetics/Gravity
Theme
  • Antarctic Peninsula

  • UAV

  • drone

  • gravity

  • tectonics

Place
  • Marguerite Bay Antarctica

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

  • Geology
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no limitations to public access
Access constraints
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Other constraints
no limitations
Use constraints
License
Other constraints
Open Government Licence v3.0
Use constraints
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This data is governed by the NERC Data Policy: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/nerc/our-policies-and-standards/nerc-data-policy/

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Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (), and the following conditions:





1. To cite the data in any publication as follows:



Jordan, T., Robinson, C., Reed, T., & Toomey, R. (2024). Airborne gravity data over Marguerite Bay collected with a Windracers Ultra UAV (2023/24 season) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/3a9c8604-2bca-48c1-a40c-48a873076581





2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.

Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

None

Unique resource identifier
url
Codespace

url

Association Type
Cross reference
Unique resource identifier
url
Codespace

url

Association Type
Cross reference
Spatial representation type
Text, table
Language
English
Character set
UTF8
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information
N
S
E
W
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Begin date
2024-02-09
End date
2024-03-03

Vertical extent

Minimum value
286.0
Maximum value
805.0

Vertical CS

No information provided.

Vertical datum

No information provided.
Supplemental Information

It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data, and that the author be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk.

Title

European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry

Date (Publication)
2008-11-12
Cited responsible party
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

European Petroleum Survey Group

EPSGadministrator@iogp.org

Publisher
Unique resource identifier
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031
Version

6.18.3

Distributor

Distributor contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre

PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk

Distributor
Distributor format
Name Version
text/csv
Units of distribution

bytes

Transfer size
15728640
OnLine resource
Protocol Linkage Name

WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=3a9c8604-2bca-48c1-a40c-48a873076581

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Hierarchy level
Dataset
Statement

Methodology:

Instrumentation and Processing:



Data was collected using an iCORUS strapdown gravity sensor, including full thermal stabilisation, rented from iMAR Ltd. The sensor was mounted approximatley coincident with the center of mass of the Windracers Ultra survey UAV, directly below the primary survey GNSS antenna. The sensor was powered and allowed to reach a manually set stable temprature 48 hours prior to operation and remained powered and at the set temprature for the duration of the survey operation. A set ambiant temprature of 5° C was chosen, consistent with expected operational conditions. Variations of +/- 15° around this value were permissable within the systems heating/cooling capability and these limits were not exceded during the survey. Please note that the sensors actual stabilised internal temprature was a constant value ~20° above this set ambiant value. The sensor was set to colect the required Inertial Navigation System (INS) and GNSS data >15 minutes before and after each survey flight. GNSS base station data for post processing was collected at either the Rothera International GNSS Service (IGS) station, or using a tempoary Javad base station reciever installed adjacent to the runway.



Gravity values (referenced to the ellipsoid so technically gravity disturbance) were calculated using the terrapos GNSS processing software package. This implements a Kalman filtering approach to integrate INS (accelerometer and gyroscope triads) data with GNSS satellite data to simultaneously solve for platform position, velocity and attitude as well as the gravitational field variations. To conduct the processing, precise satellite ephemeris were downloaded from IGS to improve the quality of the solution. The lever arm values between the gravity sensor and the GNSS antenna must be known accurately for high quality processing. These values were initially determined by a combination of physical measurements and use of CAD images of the Windracers Ultra platform, with an accuracy of ~2 cm. Subsequently the lever arm estimate was improved by allowing the Kalman filter to optimise the lever arm values. This procedure was applied to a magnetic compensation flight, as the relatively high dynamics (roll/pitch/yaw) give a better signal for solving the lever arm. After four iterations stable, low error (<0.5 cm) lever arm estimates were achieved, which were applied for all subsequent missions.



The output gravity values were visually assessed for quality using the Geosoft software package. Offsets between recovered gravity values for different flights of up to 20 mGal were apparent, with some flights showing an apparent linear trend of up to 5 mGal between start and end. To resolve this error the output 'absolute gravity' value for the UAV during the static measurements before and after each flight was compared to the absolute gravity value reported for Rothera Hanger tie point by Rene Foresberg during the PolarGAP survey ( https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/documents/20142/37627/PolarGap-2015-2016-final-report.pdf). The differences were assumed to be the offset in the gravity anomaly value. A linear trend between the start and end static offsets was imposed to account for system/processing drift. All static readings were made withing 50 m, and more typically ~20 m from the hanger tie point, so this is a relatively robust check. Minor line to line offsets remained visible in the gravity data after levelling to the hanger tie point. Simple statistical levelling, applied using two missions flown either orthogonal or oblique to the main survey as tie lines, reduced the errors further. The southern part of the survey lacked tie lines, and an additional judgement was made to reduce the amount of statistical levelling in this region, as it provided the best visual minimisation of line to line noise.



To convert the free air anomaly (disturban...(24)

Data collection:

Sensor(s): iCORUS strapdown gravity sensor from iMAR Ltd.



Platform(s):UAV - Windracers Ultra TD-02

Data quality:

The processed gravity data was created using a Kalman filter with a spatial corelation coefficient of 2 km, and an assumed standard deviation for the gravity data of 10 mGal. The assumed minimum along track resolution is therefore 2 km. Comparison of repeat lines shows differences with a standard deviation of 1.66 mGal. This is taken to represent the accuracy of the dataset after levelling.

Metadata

File identifier
3a9c8604-2bca-48c1-a40c-48a873076581 XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Hierarchy level name

dataset

Date stamp
2024-10-15
Metadata standard name

ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata

Metadata standard version

ISO 19115:2003(E)

Metadata author
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre

polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk

Point of contact
 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

thumbnail

Keywords

Antarctic Peninsula UAV drone gravity tectonics
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Geology
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords

EARTH SCIENCE > Solid Earth > Geodetics/Gravity EARTH SCIENCE > Solid Earth > Geodetics/Gravity > Gravity


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