Survey report 2016/17 summer season, Voyage VMI, Geoscience Australia, Authors - Bart Thomas and Ryan Ruddick

Brief description

Geoscience Australia surveyors Bart Thomas and Ryan Ruddick travelled to Macquarie Island on the Australian Antarctic Division's voyage VMI in November/December 2016.
Survey work for a number of Australian Antarctic projects was undertaken at the station on Macquarie Island.

Project 4092 - Geoscience Australia geodetic and geophysical monitoring program:
- Upgrade and modernise the GNSS equipment.
- Undertake a local monitoring survey of the GNSS equipment.

Project 5067 – Tide Gauges:
- Validate tide gauge reference marks on station and at tide gauge.

Project 5092 – Modernisation and Infrastructure:
- Survey the pits and lights between the ANARESAT dome and the fire hydrant.
- Spot heights along the isthmus.
- Survey the corners of the spa and sauna building and Riometer.

Project 4036 – Remediation of petroleum contaminants in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic:
- Provide heights on Piezo Tubes.

Lineage

Progress Code: completed

Statement: The horizontal datum for this dataset is, as per the survey marks SPM10708, SPM10709 and AUS211RM3, on ITRF2000@2000. Elevations are based on the documented MACQ1982 values for the survey marks from the Australian Antarctic Data Centre Survey Control database. Subsequent levelling connections to the survey network bench marks show that this height datum is consistent with the Mean Sea Level determination of AAE BM1 RM2 in Garden Bay. The survey was preformed using RTK survey method, and checks were made between each of these bench marks.
Typically, the data can be considered accurate to +/- 0.02 metres in the horizontal, and +/- 0.04 metres in the vertical.

Only specific features requested prior to the voyage were measured during this survey, and as such, this dataset is not a complete representation of the area of the survey. Features such as walls, tanks, buildings and associated cut/fill and drainage near these features were not measured at this time.

In areas of tussock and seal wallows, the ground level was taken at the determined natural surface level (i.e. not in the bottom of the wallow, and not on top of the tussock mound). In these areas, solid ground surface may deviate up to as much as +/- 0.5 metres from the measured spot height in the area. The rock outcrops to the north of the Science building were not measured in detail, and are shown in this dataset as only a radius to encompass the feature.

Data from the surveys is available for download in shapefile format. Also available are selected shapefiles which were shifted by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre to the WGS84 horizontal datum on which the station was originally mapped. This was done by applying "The coordinate difference between ITRF 2000 and AUSLIG WGS84 values, based on coordinate values for NMX/1, is -1.40 E and -0.20 N." as given on page 3 of the survey report Macquarie Island OSG Survey Campaign, Voyage 8 Round Trip, March 2002 by John VanderNiet and Nick Bowden. i.e. the eastings of the WGS84 data will be 1.40 metres greater than the ITRF2000@2000 data and the northings of the WGS84 data will be 0.20 metres greater than the ITRF2000@2000 data.