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Antarctic Single Frames = Frame Level Records of Antarctica Photos: 1946 - 2000

Metadata Updated: November 13, 2025

'Aerial photographs of Antarctica from the United States Antarctic Resource Center (USARC) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) are maintained in this collection. USARC data are used by scientists and others to determine geologic features, analyze ice stream flow, and monitor penguin and seal populations. Several types of mapping cameras and film formats have been used to acquire over 300,000 frames of photography since 1946, with annual acquisitions since 1980. The majority of the USARC photography is panchromatic black and white taken with three Fairchild cameras, each with a metrogon lens resulting in trimetrogon photographs (left oblique, vertical, and right oblique photographs). More recent acquisitions include natural color and color-infrared, archived mainly on 9-inch film. Fewer than 30,000 frames (less than 10 percent) of the photography are archived on 70-mm film. Spatial resolutions vary as a function of photographic scale, which ranges from 1:1,000 to 1:64,000. The original aerial film negatives were store at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. The USGS archives most of the film taken over Antarctica what was held in the United States. Original film rolls acquired more than forty years ago became the responsibility of the National Archives, once scanned the rolls were sent to College Park, MD for storage. The USGS is responsible for maintaining the USARC, which is a repository and distribution site for all cartographic materials covering Antarctica that are produced by the United States and other participating USARC nations. '

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-eros5e83d8ba165cbcc3
Data Last Modified 2023-07-19T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 27e0b22c-cdb4-41c8-88de-538f0b1fe26c
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180, -90, -180, -90
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 3cf475264c80743f80a17579b8f506f23c2c127dd0474a1cabc97bc817259190
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -180, -90, -180, -90, -180, -90, -180, -90, -180, -90}

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