Mapping Beaver Lake

One of the mapping projects for the Australian Antarctic Division Mapping Program in Antarctica during the 2003–04 summer, was the acquisition of SPOT 5 high resolution satellite imagery (2.5 metre pixels) of the area to the northwest of Beaver Lake and the location of ground control points to georeference this imagery. The Australian Antarctic Division map of the area was published in 1990 using geographic information derived from Russian maps of the region published in 1978. How or from which medium the geographic information in the Russian maps was derived is unknown.

The acquisition of satellite imagery and the mapping from this imagery is in support of geoscience and glaciology projects, the creation of geographical information system (GIS) data for the area and the production of a new digital map.

The SPOT 5 satellite imagery will be used to map topographic features such as glaciers, gorges, scree slopes and lakes while Aster satellite imagery (20 metre resolution) will be used in the production of a Digital Elevation Model.

Henk Brolsma, Mapping Officer, AAD

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