SGIP: Antarctic Seismo-Geodetic Ice Penetrator

The Antarctic Seismo-Geodetic Ice Penetrator (SGIP) is an important Haystack polar geodesy initiative.

Ice shelf behavior, and the mechanisms by which they collapse—thus “uncorking” the land glaciers and triggering major ice sheet collapse and associated sea level rise—is a critical cryosphere-ocean research topic.

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded development of an air-droppable SGIP will provide dense instrumentation of Antarctic ice shelves with broadband seismometers and GPS receivers to monitor the response of the shelves to ocean forcings, with satellite communication for near-real-time data download to a central repository. Such a system will replace the challenging and dangerous logistics currently faced in obtaining such measurements with on-site personnel with efficient, safer aircraft-based deployment.