BGS Hosted Metadata
Topographic data for Alexander Island and the surrounding region, including coastline, grounding line, contours, spot heights, rock outcrop and lakes (2022 - 2025)
This record consists of 5 different datasets covering the Alexander Island region of Antarctica: coastline (including grounding line and ice shelf fronts), contours, spot heights, rock outcrop and lakes. The data have been produced for a new topographic map of Alexander Island at 1:500,000 scale, produced by the Mapping and Geographic Information Centre, British Antarctic Survey.
The data are suitable for a 1:500,000 scale map but may be suitable for larger scales in certain areas. They have been created from source data ranging from 2022 - 2025. The data primarily cover Alexander Island, and also cover Rothschild, Charcot and Latady islands, as well as Wilkins and George VI ice shelves, and the Rymill Coast section of Palmer Land on the Antarctic Peninsula.
The datasets were created using a mixture of GIS software, primarily digitised from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery or extracted from high resolution, published elevation models. Exact details of each dataset can be found in the lineage statements.
Simple
- Date (Creation)
- 2025-04-24
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-04-24
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-04-24
- Date (released)
- 2025-04-24
- Edition
-
1.0
- Unique resource identifier
- https://doi.org/10.5285/98a92a0c-4fa3-4319-a554-f85d1564de40
- Codespace
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doi
- Unique resource identifier
- GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02049
- Codespace
- Other citation details
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Please cite this item as: Gerrish, L., Skachkova, A., Ireland, L., & Field, E. (2025). Topographic data for Alexander Island and the surrounding region, including coastline, grounding line, contours, spot heights, rock outcrop and lakes (2022 - 2025) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/98a92a0c-4fa3-4319-a554-f85d1564de40
- Credit
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No credit.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role British Antarctic Survey Gerrish, Laura Author British Antarctic Survey Skachkova, Aliaksandra Author British Antarctic Survey Ireland, Louise Author British Antarctic Survey Field, Elena Author NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre Point of contact
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Maintenance note
- Completed
- Theme
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Alexander Island
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cartography
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coastline
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contours
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elevation
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grounding line
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lakes
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rock outcrop
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spot heights
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topographic
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- Place
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Alexander Island Antarctica
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Wilkins Ice Shelf Antarctica
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George VI Ice Shelf Antarctica
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Fossil Bluff Antarctica
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Latady Island Antarctica
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Rothschild Island Antarctica
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Charcot Island Antarctica
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Rymill Coast Antarctica
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Bach Ice Shelf Antarctica
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GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- no limitations to public access
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- no limitations
- Use constraints
- License
- Other constraints
- Open Government Licence v3.0
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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None
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
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doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
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doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
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doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
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doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Larger work citation
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
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url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Spatial representation type
- Text, table
- Language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Topic category
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- Elevation
- Environment
- Geoscientific information
))
- Begin date
- 2022-01-01
- End date
- 2025-04-20
Vertical extent
- Minimum value
- 200.0
- Maximum value
- 2800.0
Vertical CS
Vertical datum
- Supplemental Information
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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
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European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry
- Date (Publication)
- 2008-11-12
- Cited responsible party
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role European Petroleum Survey Group
Publisher
- Unique resource identifier
- urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031
- Version
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6.18.3
Distributor
- Distributor contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre Distributor
- Distributor format
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Name Version application/zip application/vnd.shp
- Units of distribution
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bytes
- Transfer size
- 10171187
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=98a92a0c-4fa3-4319-a554-f85d1564de40 Get Data
- Units of distribution
-
bytes
- Transfer size
- 10171187
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=98a92a0c-4fa3-4319-a554-f85d1564de40 Get Data
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Statement
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Methodology:
Coastline:
The starting point for this data was version 7.8 of the Antarctic Digital Database coastline (doi.org/10.5285/98d7c98c-b223-4774-b20e-886630632b12). Using ArcGIS Pro version 3.3.0, the data was clipped to this area of interest and every section of line was checked against current satellite imagery, and updated where necessary. The grounding line has undergone a major revision, with the majority of new data being incorporated from Wallis et al, 2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4723-2024 . There ar 5 fields in the attribute table of the final dataset:
* 'surface' - detailing whether the line is 'ice coastline', 'rock coastline', 'ice shelf and front' or 'grounding line'
* 'revdate' - revision date
* 'source' - the source of each section of line, mostly consisting of satellite name and ID
* 'sourcedate' - the date of the source, mostly in YYYY-MM-DD format apart from 2 sources where a year is only available
* 'lineage' - a brief description of how each section of line was created
The coordinate reference system of the data is WGS84 Antarctic Polar Stereographic, EPSG 3031.
Contours:
Using ArcGIS Pro version 3.3.0, contours were extracted from two different Digital Elevation Models and then merged together into 1 file. The majority of contours were created from REMA v2 (Howat, Ian, et al., 2022, ''The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica - Mosaics, Version 2'', https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EBW8UC, Harvard Dataverse, V1, accessed September 2024.) apart from Latady Island and Charcot Islands which were created from the Copernicus GLO-90 DEM ( https://doi.org/10.5270/ESA-c5d3d65). For REMA, the 500m mosaic was downloaded and converted to EGM2008 geoid, and contours were extracted. For the Copernicus GLO-90 DEM, the 90m tiles were used and contours were extracted from these, and then smoothed using a 60m smoothing tolerance. The two areas were merged together, and there is a field in the attribute table called 'source' which details which source each line comes from. The main field is called 'Contour' and contains the height in metres of each contour line. There are also fields for 'surface' which states whether the contour falls on ice or ice-free ground, and a field called 'interval' which states 'yes' or 'no' depending on whether the contour is an interval of 1000 or not. These fields are to improve cartographic presentation of the data, when styled using the fields. The coordinate reference system of the data is WGS84 Antarctic Polar Stereographic, EPSG 3031.
Spot heights:
This file contains 905 spot heights for the Alexander Island region, each point identified as a local high point with the height extracted from the 2 metre mosaic tiles of REMA v2 (Howat, Ian, et al., 2022, ''The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica - Mosaics, Version 2'', https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EBW8UC, Harvard Dataverse, V1, accessed September 2024.) Detailed methodology is given below. All processing was carried out in ArcGIS Pro version 3.3.0, apart from step 2 which was carried out in QGIS version 3.34.7. Only a selection of these heights are shown on the published Alexander Island map, but all of the points that were produced are published here.
1. 32 metre version tiles of REMA v2 were downloaded, merged together, and converted to use Mean Sea Level / EGM2008 heights. The 32 m version was used to start with because the 2 m version was too power and time intensive for processing.
2. Using the 'Spot Height Extractor' Plugin in QGIS (version 1.1 - https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/Spot-Height-Extractor-Plugin-main/ ), spot heights were extracted from the 32 m mosaic. This plugin identifies local high points. A neighbourhood size of 101 was used, which gave an optimal number of output points.
3. Manual tidying of the output file was performed to delete points on ice shelves, and in other locations ...(72)
Data collection:
ArcGIS Pro (version 3.3.0)
QGIS (version 3.34.7)
QGIS Spot Height Extractor plugin version 1.1
Data quality:
All data is subject to error and known potential errors have been detailed in the lineage statements. Elevation data accuracy statements can be seen in the source data publications. The coastline, rock and lakes have been interpreted from satellite imagery using the dataset creator's best knowledge of the region and available data.
Metadata
- File identifier
- 98a92a0c-4fa3-4319-a554-f85d1564de40 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Hierarchy level name
-
dataset
- Date stamp
- 2025-04-24
- Metadata standard name
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ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata
- Metadata standard version
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ISO 19115:2003(E)
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre Point of contact
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