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The Omega Foundation Livingston Island GPS expedition
16:19 p.m. EST Oct 31, 2003
Following the success of last years Omega Shinn GPS expedition, the Omega Foundation is sponsoring another expedition this year to Livingston Island, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
On the expedition this year will be several folks from last year’s Shinn team, Damien Gildea, 34, of Australia and Chilean, Rodrigo Fica, 36. Joining them will be Australian GIS specialist John Bath, 33, and a Chilean student, Osvaldo Usaj.
Recording Mount Friesland’s height
The aim this year is to first ascend Mount Friesland on Livingston Island and record it’s proper height by means of a GPS. The team will be using a Trimble 5700 GPS receiver and plans to send the raw data back to Australia by means of an Iridium satellite phone. If all goes to plan the expedition will be able to know the exact height of Friesland from Geosciences Australia while they are still in the field. Friesland only has one recorded ascent, by a Spanish team in 1991.
Uber-accuracy
This team is not using your ordinary Garmin handheld GPS. The Trimble 5700 unit goes for about 19,500 USD. With additional accessories a complete package can run you close to 50 thousand dollars. Extreme accuracy costs an extreme price. After climbing Friesland, whose height is currently considered to be over 1600m, the expedition will move on to ascend other high peaks in the area, recording their heights as well. A new member of the team, John Bath is a GIS specialist and also a trains others in GPS and remote sensing systems.* His expertise will no doubt help data collection
In all, the team plans to spend four weeks on the island, but may only get five or six clear days – a lot of their transportation and climbing will be weather dependent.
New maps for the area
The area has been mapped by the British Antarctic survey and Spanish and Bulgarian programs have also done topographical surveys. There is still some confusion over nomenclature on the surveys, topographical inaccuracies, and conflicting recorded heights of Mount Friesland and the next highest peak. The information collected by the Omega expedition will be combined with the BAS maps and the work from the Spanish to produce a more accurate map that will be available sometime in 2004.
The Omega Foundation is a private, operating institution dedicated to promoting scientific research, education, and environmental protection, primarily in the high altitude and high latitude areas of earth.
*GIS – GPS – remote sensing: GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. GIS is in essence a database system that works with geography and maps. It originated out of Tax recording purposes. Maps digitized onto computers are linked to tables that have information about the location of residences, and other related info like property value etc. .
GIS is now being used for all sorts of different applications, from recording measuring heights of mountains, to determining watershed areas, to mapping out crime statistics.
GPS stands for Global Positioning System – GPS units on earth communicate with a network of satellites in orbit and can triangulate their positions on earth.
Remote sensing has to do with collecting data from satellites. Maps and information used on GIS systems come from satellite data and imagery.
Image of Damien Gildea using the GPS systems last year on top of Mount Shinn, 4660.6m courtesy of Damien Gildea.
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