Observatory Details

IAGA Code VNA
Name Neumayer Station III
Opened 2014-01-01
Closed
Latitude -70.683 °N
Longitude -8.283 °E
Altitude 40.0 m
Country Antarctica (AQ)
Website
INTERMAGNET Member 2014 -
Notes Neumayer Station III (NM-III) started operation in March 2009. It is located some 5 km south of the former Neumayer Station II (NM-II) which had been in operation from 1992 to 2008. NM-II had to be abandoned because of too heavy loads of snow and ice. The first base was named Georg-von-Neumayer Station (GvN) and was located further north. It was in operation from 1981 to 1991.

NM-III is, like its predecessors, located on the floating Ekström Ice Shelf. At this site the ice shelf is flowing almost parallel to North at a flow rate of approx. 150 meters per year. Additionally we observe a slight North-East (clockwise) rotation at a rate of approx. 1 degree in 4 years.
The geomagnetic observatory at NM-III is installed in a deep trench in the firn, which had been covered by a wooden roof. Inside the trench we installed a thermally insulated non-magnetic container. This heated container houses a DM-010 3-component fluxgate sensor (STL Systemtechnik Ludwig) and GSM-19 Overhauser magnetometer. All other electronic equipment needed for data acquisition and
transfer is installed inside this container. Outside the container we installed an FGE 3-component fluxgate sensor on top of a plastic sewage tube, which had been frozen deeply in the firn. Manual DI-measurements are performed with a Carl Zeiss 020A(B) theodolite on a tripod inside the container and on top of another frozen in plastic sewage tube outside the container. These measurements are carried out every 2-3 days. Comparing simultaneous DI-measurements inside and outside the conatiner we noticed very late that there is a significant difference of approx. 2 minutes between the I values. This is caused by a slight deflection from the horizontal of the theodolite on the tripod when changing from the measuring postion, which is always the same, to a reading position at the the opposite site of the observer's measuring position. When comparing calibrated values from the DM-010 sensor inside the container, which had been calculated using the theodolite on the tripod, with calibrated data of the FGE sensor outside, which are based on DI measurements performed with the theodolite on top of the sewage tube, we noticed significant differences especially in the NS and Z components. The difference in DM-010 – FGE is approx. +10 nT for Z and +20 nT for NS. So all hourly mean values reported for the NM-III observatory from 2009 – 2015 are biased by these values. For data from the NM-II observatory, reported from 1993 – 2008 no reports about disturbing deflections are known.
With the new FGE fluxgate and DI-measurements performed on a stable, frozen in plastic tube we now meet high quality standards in geomagnetic recordings and thus became am member of Intermagnet in 2014. The FGE is fully operational since January 2013. All values reported to WDC until 2015 are obtained from DM-010 recordings based on DI-measurements inside the container. From January 2016 on all reported 3-component data will come from the FGE fluxgate sensor.
The DM-010 sensor had been orientated parallel to geographic North in February 2009, while the FGE sensor had been oriented parallel to magnetic North in 2012. Since that date none of both sensors had been re-orientated to account for the rotational movement of the ice shelf.

Neumayer Station II located at N -70.65 E 351.75. Data between 1992-2008 (inclusive) from this location.

Contact Details

Name Alfons Eckstaller
Address Alfred-Wegener-Institut
Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research
Am Alten Hafen 26
D-27568 Bremerhaven
Germany
E-mail alfons.eckstaller@awi.de
Fax

Instrumentation

Instrument Type In Use From In Use To
DTU Model G 1D Vector magnetometer Unknown 2013-01-01
STL DM010 3D Unknown 2009-04-01
GEM Systems GSM-19 Scalar 2009-04-01

Yearbooks

No yearbooks available.