A new aeromagnetic survey of the North Pole and the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island

We present a preliminary analysis of more than 50,000 km of aeromagnetic survey lines flown in the Arctic Ocean, acquired in 2009 with an optically pumped scalar magnetometer as part of the airborne geophysical survey ‘LOMGRAV’. From the observations we removed main and magnetospheric fields as given by the CHAOS-3 field model (Olsen et al., 2010) and remaining external fields as monitored by the Canadian magnetic observatory Alert.

The reduced data were levelled based on cross-over differences at line intersections. Finally, a grid was computed, upward continued by 3500 m and compared with the EMAG2 grid (Maus et al., 2009), showing a good general agreement but also areas with systematic differences. The obtained data are expected to be part of the next version of the World Digital Magnetic Anomaly Map (WDMAM).