Observatories and field sites
Observatories, field sites, research facilities and instrument systems used by PGI for high-latitude geophysical observations.
Overview
The Polar Geophysical Institute was founded on 11 October 1960 to investigate physical processes at high latitudes.
PGI operates in the Russian Arctic and maintains a distributed network of observatories, field sites and scientific instruments.
The infrastructure supports geomagnetic, optical, radio-physical, cosmic-ray and atmospheric observations, auroral monitoring, environmental diagnostics and the development of new high-latitude measurement methods.
Research sites
Institute facilities in Murmansk and Apatity with observation, computing and instrument systems.
The Murmansk facilities include radio tomography equipment, a GPS/GLONASS receiver, mobile geophysical systems, a biophysical research system and a weather station.
The Apatity facilities include systems for cosmic-ray monitoring, auroral observations, atmospheric measurements, scientific computing and meteorological observations.
Permanent observation sites for geomagnetic, optical, radio-physical and cosmic-ray measurements.
The observatory is located 7 km south-east of Lovozero. It has road and internet access, laboratory and auxiliary buildings, two magnetic pavilions and an optical pavilion.
The observatory is located on the Svalbard Archipelago. Its technical building, optical pavilion and life-support container are 5 km from Barentsburg, while the office and cosmic-ray station are located in the settlement.
Field operations require special arrangements for logistics, equipment delivery and staff travel.
The observatory performs geomagnetic variation observations and induction magnetometer measurements.
Facilities for radio-physical, ionospheric, optical and combined geophysical observations.
The field site supports radio tomography, electromagnetic measurements, GPS/GLONASS observations and combined geophysical experiments.
The field site is located north of Tumannyi. Access is difficult, particularly in winter. The site includes a laboratory building, an antenna field and a magnetic pavilion.
The site can accommodate instruments that do not require continuous maintenance.
The field site is located 5 km west of Apatity. Winter access may be limited by snow. The site includes a brick building and storage facilities and is used for optical observations of auroral phenomena.
Distributed scientific instrument systems operated by PGI.
The facility consists of seven geographically distributed receiving stations equipped with remote-control, data acquisition and transmission systems and operates continuously in automatic mode.