Unprocessed shot gathers from active source seismic surveys over an inferred active subglacial lake, Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland, 2024-2025
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02184
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Summary
Abstract:
We present here unprocessed shot gathers from active seismic surveys acquired over an ice surface elevation anomaly, inferred to be caused by an active subglacial lake, on Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland. Seismic reflection data were acquired over three field campaigns in July 2024, October 2024, and June 2025. The seismic data were acquired to image and characterise an inferred active subglacial lake, as part of the NERC-funded SLIDE (Subglacial lakes at Isunnguata Sermia - Dynamics and Evolution) research project (NE/X000257/1). The acquisition system consisted of 48 vertical component geophones (100 Hz) and a 12 kg sledgehammer source impacting a plastic baseplate. Survey designs varied between campaigns to adapt to the challenging surface topography and to leverage improving constraints on the subglacial bed geometry.
The SLIDE project is funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council Standard Grant NE/X000257/1.
Keywords:
Greenland, active seismic, subglacial lakes
Citation
Killingbeck, S., Doyle, S., Hawkins, J., Peacey, M., Ing, R., Veness, R., Thorpe, S., Craw, L., Comstive, L., Sole, A., Livingstone, S., Booth, A., Ross, N., Geertsma-Dolton, B., Fawcett, J., Moffatt, A., Gimbert, F., Le Bris, T., Michel, A., ... Kulessa, B. (2026). Unprocessed shot gathers from active source seismic surveys over an inferred active subglacial lake, Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland, 2024-2025 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/c91c5bda-9d40-4711-b926-11343444da19
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RELATED DATA SET METADATA
- https://doi.org/10.5285/b90093f6-2431-42f3-a6d8-7365f368e188
- https://doi.org/10.5285/c528fbf7-362a-41f7-a060-6b278e67349b
Constraints
| Access Constraints: | Data under embargo until the publication of the associated paper. |
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| Use Constraints: | This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
Basic Information
| Creation Date: | 2026-04-17 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK PDC |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Siobhan Killingbeck |
| Role(s) | Investigator, Technical Contact |
| Organisation | Swansea University |
| Name | Samuel Doyle |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Aberystwyth University |
| Name | Jonathan D Hawkins |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Cardiff University |
| Name | Matthew W Peacey |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Aberystwyth |
| Name | Ryan Ing |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Edinburgh University |
| Name | Remy Veness |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Sheffield Hallam University |
| Name | Sian Thorpe |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Sheffield |
| Name | Lisa Craw |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Cardiff University |
| Name | Leon Comstive |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Name | Andrew J Sole |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Sheffield |
| Name | Stephen J Livingstone |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Sheffield University |
| Name | Adam D Booth |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Name | Prof Neil Ross |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Newcastle University |
| Name | Ben Geertsma-Dolton |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Name | Joseph Fawcett |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Name | Angus Moffatt |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Sheffield |
| Name | Florent Gimbert |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Grenoble Alpes University |
| Name | Tifenn Le Bris |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Grenoble Alpes University |
| Name | Alexandre Michel |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Grenoble Alpes University |
| Name | Thomas R Chudley |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Name | Bernd Kulessa |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Swansea University |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
Additional Information
| Quality: | The quality of the seismic imaging varied significantly across the different survey periods, driven by seasonal changes in the thermal state of the ice and surface melt conditions. The June 2025 survey produced the highest quality data with a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), allowing the bed to be clearly imaged across the entire profile. In contrast, while the bed remains discernible in the October 2024 data, the records exhibit a lower SNR which we attribute to increased scattering and noise associated with warmer, wetter ice conditions. The July 2024 survey yielded the poorest results; along the first 600 m of the long S-N profile, the bed was not imaged at all due to an exceptionally low SNR. This lack of signal is attributed to high englacial attenuation and ambient noise from active surface melt and supraglacial drainage during the peak of the ablation season, which effectively masked the return from the ice-bed interface. The archived data consist of shot gathers created by vertically stacking 9 high-quality hammer impacts at each source location to improve the SNR. The number of samples for Line1_1 and Line1_2 acquired in July 2024 is 16000 - thus the records end at 2 seconds. Note, the last 800 samples in these shot gathers have negligible values as the data was originally acquired with a 0.1 second time delay and thus has been shifted to start at 0 seconds for continuity with the other shots. The number of samples for all the other lines is 8000 and thus these records end at 1 second. |
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| Lineage/Methodology: | The acquisition system consisted of 48 vertical component geophones (100 Hz) and a 12 kg sledgehammer source impacting a plastic baseplate. Survey designs varied between campaigns to adapt to the challenging surface topography and to leverage improving constraints on the subglacial bed geometry: In July 2024, two profiles were acquired extending from the centre of the over-deepened trough into the centre of the anomaly. Geophones were deployed at 10 m intervals. Source points were occupied at every geophone location, with a minimum of 9 hammer stacks summed per shot gather. In October 2024, the geophone spacing was reduced to 2 m. Two spreads were acquired within the anomaly and one along its southern margin. In June 2025, a cross-spread geometry was used to characterize a subglacial "draw" feature, alongside a connecting line linking the July 2024 and October 2024 profiles. Data were acquired with a 4 m geophone spacing and a minimum of 9 shot locations per spread to achieve 2-fold coverage. In this period, to minimize background noise from surface meltwater, acquisition was restricted to early morning hours (~07:00 LT) when the supraglacial hydrological system was inactive and the subglacial system was in a low-pressure state. Recordings are 1 second long, with a temporal sampling interval of 0.125 milliseconds (thus a Nyquist frequency of 4000 Hz, however the spurious resonance of the 100 Hz vertical component geophones is ~600 Hz). At the primary target (the glacier bed at ~550 m depth), the horizontal resolution is governed by the Fresnel Zone. For a dominant frequency of 100 Hz and an ice velocity of 3740 m/s (lambda= 37.4 m), the calculated Fresnel Zone radius is ~100 m. While the CMP (Common Mid Point) binning (1.0 m for 2 m receiver spacing to 5.0 m for 10 m receiver spacing) provides dense spatial sampling, the lateral resolution of subglacial features is physically limited to the Fresnel footprint prior to migration. The vertical resolution (lambda/4) = ~ 9 m. The data were acquired as follows: July 2024 (Line 1 part 1 and 2): 2024-07-01 - 2024-07-03 ~1000m long seismic survey October 2024 (Line 1 part 4 and 5, Line2): 2024-09-28 - 2024-10-03 ~250m long seismic survey June 2025 (Line 1 part 3, Line3, Line4): 2025-05-30 - 2025-06-03 ~400m long seismic survey with: Line 1: 67.18714 degree_north (lat) -50.14904 degree_east (long) to 67.17228 degree_north -50.14227degree_east (seismic line from the centre of the trough to the centre of the anomaly merging 5 spreads from all 3 field seasons) Line 2: 67.17829 degree_north -50.15256 degree_east to 67.17812 degree_north to -50.14745 degree_east (October, 2024 centre of anomaly) Line 3: 67.17959 degree_north -50.15464 degree_east to 67.17789 degree_north, -50.14823 degree_east (June 2025, across draw) Line 4: 67.17749 degree_north -50.15433 degree_east to 67.1802 degree_north -50.14924 degree_east (June 2025, along draw) Source and receiver locations were determined using real-time kinematic (RTK) surveying. Coordinate system of the Source and Receiver XY components in the sgy files: EPSG:32622 (WGS 84 / UTM zone 22N) |
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Locality
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2024-07-01 |
| End Date | 2024-07-03 |
| Start Date | 2024-09-28 |
| End Date | 2024-10-03 |
| Start Date | 2025-05-30 |
| End Date | 2025-06-03 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | 67.17228 |
| Northernmost | 67.18714 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -50.15464 |
| Easternmost | -50.14227 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Data Resolution: | |
| Latitude Resolution | N/A |
| Longitude Resolution | N/A |
| Horizontal Resolution Range | 30 meters - < 100 meters |
| Vertical Resolution | N/A |
| Vertical Resolution Range | 1 meter - < 10 meters |
| Temporal Resolution | N/A |
| Temporal Resolution Range | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Greenland |
| Detailed Location | Isunnguata Sermia |
Instrumentation
| Sensor(s): |
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| Data Collection: | 48 channel Geometrics geode seismic system, with 100 Hz vertical component geophones using the acquisition software Seismodule controller. |
Storage
| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online FTP |
| Distribution Size | N/A |
| Distribution Format | N/A |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | Line1_1 = 48 x .sgy files, Line1_2 = 56 x .sgy files, Line1_3 = 10 x .sgy files, Line1_4 = 9 x .sgy files, Line1_5 = 29 x .sgy files, Line2 = 31 x .sgy files, Line3 = 9 x .sgy files, Line4 = 10 x .sgy files (total 451 MB) Coordinate system of the Source and Receiver XY components in the sgy files: EPSG:32622 (WGS 84 / UTM zone 22N) |