LATA

Loadings And Tectonics of Antarctica Peninsula

The LATA (Loadings And Tectonics of Antarctica peninsula) is a long term project that aims to contribute for the understanding of several phenomena within and around of Antarctica Peninsula using Space-Geodesy techniques:

Θ Model the ocean tide loading in and around of the Antarctica Peninsula.
Θ Compute the angular velocities of the Antarctica Peninsula tectonic block in order to verify its internal stability and to evaluate its relative deformation with respect to other tectonic units.
Θ Study the consequences caused by human activity on the permafrost around installed bases.

State-of-art – SEGAL provided a state-of-art GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), including a weather station installed as a CORS (Continuous Operating Reference Station) at Base Primavera, a location where such equipment was not available before. This have been permitting to densify the existing network of CORS stations in Antarctica Peninsula.

The planning and installation of the CORS station in the Antarctica Peninsula was done in collaboration with the Instituto Antártico Argentino. One of the LATA members is an Argentinian researcher that carry out local studies at the permafrost degradation.

In 2016 the GNSS station was installed while in 2018 the remaining auxiliary equipment was transported to Base Primavera. In 2019 there will be a third mission that will focus more on observing the ocean tides in front of the base and will perform tidal gravity measurements.

Polar research –The LATA project is also a contribution of Portugal for the Polar research: all collected data is being made available to the international scientific community.

Timeline

2016: GNSS station installed
2018: remaining auxiliary equipment transported to Base Primavera
2019: focused on observing the ocean tides in front of the base and to perform tidal gravity measurements

Project Members

 Rui Fernandes (Principal Investigator of the 2016 and 2018 campaign)

Pedro Almeida

 Bento Martins

Machiel Bos (PI of the 2019 campaign – focusing on tides)

Claudio Matko

Gabriel Goyanes

Funded by

 Propolar