NORSAR's engineers Ravn (26) and Morten (38) have travelled to Antarctica and Troll. They are going to establish a new station where NORSAR listens to the earth.

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For three months, they will be in Antarctica in temperatures of up to 30 degrees below zero, building a completely new station. They have already completed just over two weeks and are well ahead of schedule thanks to excellent cooperation with the Norwegian Polar Institute. In addition, the weather has been favourable.
- We have progressed further than planned. That is reassuring. But the next 10 days will be crucial. Now the container with all the equipment we packed down at Kjeller in November is arriving. We are crossing our fingers that the weather holds and that we have everything we need to succeed, says Morten Hervik. 

NORSAR employee preparing equipment in front of snow-covered mountain range

It is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The extra allocation to move the station came from the Ministry of Climate and Environment (KLD). 

  • We are to establish a seismo-acoustic array station. A network of several seismometers and infrasound sensors (acoustic sensors) placed in a geometric pattern to improve detection, localisation and characterisation of seismic events (such as earthquakes, explosions, volcanic activity) and sound in the atmosphere, says the head of the National Data Centre at NORSAR, Jon Magnus Christensen, continuing:

  • We were to have established it at Troll, but because the government has decided to upgrade the Troll research station and among other things erect a wind power station for green energy, NORSAR had to move the monitoring station away from this facility.  The direct cause is the noise the wind turbines will create. 

VVS Aktuell features the project on their website: 
Seismic project in Antarctica puts Norwegian technology to the test - VVS Aktuelt