Mapping and Geographic Information Centre

@magic.bas.ac.uk

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The Mapping and Geographic Information Centre (MAGIC) provides geospatial information, expertise, and services to the British Antarctic Survey (@bas.ac.uk) and wider UK activity in the Polar Regions.

image of 3D Digital Twin of Rothera Research Station showing BIM models and tracked vehicles including SDA ship
Map of the world showing countries symbolised as dark green if they are consultative parties to the Treaty, light green if they are non-consultative parties and white if they are not signatories.
Image of person setting up a GPS receiver on a concrete pad at Signy Research Station, Antarctica. The ground is snow covered and there are mountains and the sea in the background. The green Signy buildings are also in view behind the person.
Map showing the Antarctic Peninsula, overlayed with a grid depicting the percentage of rock outcrop change comparing the previous Antarctic Digital Database rock outcrop dataset to the newly released one.
A bright, colourful map titled 'TECTONIC MAP OF THE SCOTIA ARC'. The map covers South America, the Scotia Sea, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula. Bathymetry is shown with varying shades of blue.
2 people looking at some of the maps in the giveaway. A large piece of artwork showing an icy landscape can be seen on the wall behind the maps.
The red Dash-7 aircraft after arriving at Rothera. 2 people can be seen in high vis walking next to the plane. Snow and ice are on the ground, and some buildings can be seen in the background.
The front cover of our South Orkney Islands and Signy Island map. There is a photo of the landscape on Signy, with a tall, crevassed glacier in the foreground (Orwell Glacier), and clouds and snowy mountains in the distance.
A photo of many people sat in a room, looking at the camera. Some people are stood up at the back, one with their hands reached up. Photo credit: https://bsky.app/profile/uk.osgeo.org
Building Information Model (BIM) of our new Discovery Building at Rothera. The image shows a 3D building with curved edges to the roof, and the building wall closest to us has been removed in the image, allowing us to see inside. A communications tower can be seen on top of the building.
A satellite image of Skog Bay and the fronts of Murphy and Wilkinson glaciers in Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula. There is a red line showing the previous coastline, and a blue line showing the newly updated line. The date of the image is 11th Feb. 2025.
Efe presenting his work to other members of MAGIC who are all stood or sat around a large white table.
A photo of 7 people stood holding certificates. These people were recognised in the Stanfords Printed Map category, and work for HarperCollins publishers and Esri, amongst another organisations. Photo credit: British Geological Survey.
2 members of MAGIC are stood in front of a large geological map (William Smith's map) covering England, Wales and part of Scotland. The people are holding three certificates.
The new laser scanner placed outside on some grass.
A selection of the printed maps displayed for the awards ceremony.
A person looking at 2 posters during a training session. One is titled ‘Rothera Research Station’ and the other one ‘Mapping and Geographic Information Centre’.
A satellite image from 1st Sep. showing the island of South Georgia covered in snow and ice, and iceberg A23A lying about 65 km to the north. There are many clouds in the image. The berg remains as one large piece, with multiple smaller fragments around its edge. The largest fragment is still 35 km in length. A scale bar is shown in the bottom right corner, and a credit statement saying "Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery acquired 1st Sep. 2025".
A small selection of the maps being prepared for Pre-Deployment Training (PDT) at BAS. There are maps of Bird Island, Thatcher Peninsula, Signy Island, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Brunt Ice Shelf, amongst others. Some of the maps have nice scenery photos on their front cover.
A mosaic of 6 maps covering different areas in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. The maps have all got a similar style, with blue ocean and white land.
A satellite image of the Fossil Bluff region on Alexander Island. Rocky outcrops can be seen in brown, with areas of moraine being moved eastwards (right, in the image) onto the ice shelf. George VI Ice Shelf can be seen, covered in bright blue meltpools.
A topographic map of Alexander Island, Antarctica. The bathymetry depths are shown in varying shades of cyan. Ice shelves are shown in light grey. The land is white, with a hillshade detailing some of the terrain. A large information panel can be seen to the right of the main map, with information text and further small maps and satellite images.
A photo of a man launching the ebee UAV in a grassy field. There are trees in the distance and white fluffy clouds in a blue sky.
A short video of the UAV flying in the sky, swooping down lower to the ground before heading up and away again.
A photo of albatross. Mountains can be seen in the background, with water in between. Photo credit: BAS.
A screenshot of 59,261 spot heights in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. This is the initial version, before reducing the density. Each point is shown as a red dot, the coastline of Antarctica is displayed as a grey line, and the yellow squares are the extent of some of the REMA tiles.
A screenshot of a SAR image at the north-east end of the Antarctic Peninsula. The digitised ice floes are highlighted in semi-transparent green. The image is from 31st Dec. 2020.
An in-progress screenshot of two polygon boundaries in northern Alexander Island - the boundaries are for the Rouen Mountains and Havre Mountains. The map contains a hillshade, and place name locations are displayed with red points.
A photo out of the window during a test flight in the Twin Otter. A black and white propeller blade can be seen in motion. The view on the ground shows green fields and forested areas.
A photo of the aerial camera set up in the floor of the plane. The words 'applanix' and 'SOMAG' can be seen. There are lots of cables coming out of black boxes.
A photo of BAS's red Twin Otter plane in a hangar/workshop. A Canadian flag can be seen in the background.
A screenshot of a map showing the location of the RRS Sir David Attenborough, travelling north off the west of Africa. A globe inset shows the location in a wider context.
An image of the title slide with the text “advances in mapping South Georgia” “Robert Headland and Adrian Fox”
Photo looking from Stork Ridge down to Sheldon Glacier showing part of the view that our fixed cameras will capture. The image shows the view from a rocky outcrop looking down on a crevassed glacier with water in front of small icebergs are floating in the water.
A short video of the main concourse area at the Living Planet Symposium. There are large screens showing interesting satellite images, and lots of people are moving around the floor.
6 small maps of regions in Antarctica and South Georgia. These are examples of typical Helpdesk outputs from the job being advertised. Each map contains place names, bathymetry in shades of blue, and terrain details on land.
A prototype of a web map application for the British Antarctic aerial photography archive. The map opens centred on Antarctica. A user searches for “Stonington Island”; the map zooms to the location. They adjust a slider to set the search area, view image results, cancel, switch to a line-based search, and toggle to satellite imagery.
A photo of a map on a table. The map covers Alexander Island, a long island with large peninsulas coming off to the west. The land is white with contours and place names visible. Ice shelves are grey. Bathymetry is shown with intervals of cyan. A large information is shown to the right of the map with photos and text.
A photo of Dr Robert Mulvaney showing a map of of Ny-Ålesund and the Kongsfjorden region in Svalbard to visitors at the NERC Arctic Office. The visitors include the UK Foreign Secretary Rt Hon David Lammy and his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide. The photo shows 5 people stood around a map laid on a table, with one man filming.
An image of a large banner saying "GEO Business ExCel London, UK. The Geospatial Event. There are people next to the sign listening to a talk.
An image of Rothera Research Station, Rothera Point, on Adelaide Island. There is a bright blue building in the centre of the image which is the new Discovery Building. You can also see patches of snow on the point, and there are small icebergs floating in the surrounding water.
Bedmap 3 map side 1, showing the bed topography of Antarctica. 4 small roundel maps are shown in the corners presenting different datasets of interest, related to the project.
A photo of the trophy and certificate, with side A of the Bedmap 3 map shown behind. The map shows the bed topography of Antarctica underneath the ice.
Vivien Godfrey introducing the 2 day event. There are round tables with people sitting around them, and 3 screens at the front.
A photo outside the Esri conference, looking towards Westminster Abbey. Flags in the foreground read 'esri UK Annual Conference'.
Map of the Antarctic Peninsula, showing a hillshade with a blue background. The places Gardiner Islands, Farman Highland and Shanklin Glacier are marked and labelled.
An image of a person stood in front of a large poster at the EGU conference in Vienna. The title of the poster is "Improving Antarctic Topography: Utilizing Pre-Trained Models for Rock Outcrop Updates".
Virtual 3D scene of Rothera Station, Antarctica comprising a 3D model of Discovery Building, aerial imagery and elevation model. The Discovery Building is a pale blue and has an air traffic control tower on top. Other buildings can be seen around Rothera. The background of the image shows rocky and icy terrain.
A screen recording of a map of Antarctica, with three different datasets being switched on and off.
A map showing sea ice concentration polygons in West Central Greenland. Hovering over the polygons on the interface shows an information popup which displays and egg code where applicable. These egg codes contains numbers relating to the ice concentration, thickness, and floe size.
Ice chart titled “West Greenland Ice Chart” produced by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), valid as of 15 April 2025 at 21:05 UTC. The map displays the ice conditions along the west coast of Greenland.
A satellite image showing A23a iceberg as a large white block, surrounded by ocean appearing black in colour. The island of South Georgia can be seen in the centre top of the image, and there are clouds in the east of the image.
A surveyor stood on a rocky outcrop running a GPS. The sky is grey, there is a rocky mountain in the background, and ice in the foreground.
A screenshot of https://www.polarview.aq/antarctic showing the footprints of Sentinel 1 and Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) products in turquoise and yellow colours respectively.
A map of Antarctica centred on British Antarctic Territory. New place names are shown with dark red dots.
A screenshot of the APC website, with a map of Antarctica shown centrally. Place names are shown with red dots, grouped into larger circles where there are multiple names in a region.
Side 1 of the map with a main map in the centre showing the bed topography, and 4 smaller maps in the corners showing surface elevation, ice thickness, data coverage and the surrounding region.
A satellite image covering Busen Region and Thatcher Peninsula. The land is rocky, with a few green areas visible. Many of the glaciers have got large areas of moraine. The water is bluey green, with sediment plumes from the glaciers.
A screenshot of our internal 'Operations GIS' web map. Tractor traverse routes can be seen on the map as dark blue lines, and further points and lines of interest are also shown.
A screenshot of a QGIS project, with a basemap showing Antarctica, and various depot and waypoint points shown on the map as pink crosses and other symbols.