Discover Our World

Antarctica

2009-01-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

During its fleeting summer, this inhospitable land plays host to some of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth. Millions of pairs of penguins, albatrosses, petrels and other sea birds breed in the region; five species of seal are regularly observed hauled out on ice floes; orcas, humpback and minke whales are often encountered feeding on the ocean’s rich pickings, adding to the impressive list of marine mammals. The summer climate is often surprisingly mild with temperatures above freezing and the long hours of daylight mean that wildlife viewing is possible almost any time.

We would argue that it’s impossible to describe the scenery of this continent in a single word, but ‘breathtaking’ comes close! This immense landmass lies engulfed in snow and ice, while dramatic alpine ranges are cut through by immense glaciers that spill out into a coastal maze of islands, inlets and waterways. These are choked with ice – from bergy bits to immense tabular bergs as big as islands. The exquisitely sculpted shapes and hues of aquamarine inspire the imagination and provide perfect photographic moments.

The world’s fifth largest continent, Antarctica covers an area of roughly 14 million square kilometres, most of which is blanketed by a vast permanent ice sheet, averaging 2000 metres in thickness. While ‘Antarctica’ is sometimes used to mean just the continent itself, the Antarctic region comprises a very much larger area of ice shelves, seas and islands off the coast of South America and Australasia.

The wildlife-rich Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands are reached from South America, and being the most accessible parts of the continent and are the focus of many expedition voyages. With a fabled history thanks to Shackleton’s trek across its glaciers and an abundance of fauna, South Georgia is a must for many intrepid travellers.

The Weddell Sea region hugs the peninsula and is home to Emperor Penguins nesting on the frozen oceans; little wonder that this area is known as ‘iceberg alley’.

Dominated by an ice shelf the size of France, the Ross Sea region is inextricably linked to the golden age of exploration. The historic huts at Terra Nova Bay, Cape Evans and Cape Royds stand as monuments to Scott and Shackleton’s heroic expeditions. This area also boasts one of Antarctica’s most perplexing natural assets, the Dry Valleys, where no rain has fallen for at least 2 million years. Considerably more remote and inaccessible than the Peninsula, this is an area of dense pack ice most commonly reached from Australasia.

Geomatics - Cartography

2008-12-29T05:10:00.000-08:00

Cartography or Map Design is the practice of creating maps or visual representations of a surface, as you would see it from above it. Traditionally maps have always been created using pen and paper, but since the introduction and wide spread use of geographic information systems (GIS) and computers, cartography practices have evolved more into the digital world. Most maps today are now generated using map software that falls into one of three main types; GIS, CAD, and specialized map graphic design software.
Basic Overview

A map utilizes a variety of colors, symbols, and labels to represent actual features and provide information on their existence, location, and the distance between them. It can also indicate variation in terrain, heights of natural features, and the extent of vegetation cover.

Maps often function as visualization tools for spatial data which is acquired from actual measurements and can be stored into a database, from which it can be later extracted for a variety of purposes. Current trends in this field are moving away from traditional methods of mapmaking and toward the creation of increasingly dynamic, interactive maps that can be manipulated digitally, often known as Web GIS.

Most maps will contain a scale parameter that will allow the user to convert distance on the map to distance on the ground or vice versa. The ability to determine distance on a map, as well as on the earth's surface, is an important factor in GIS and the spatial relationships between features. Other important key elements or features that you should find on a good map would be a title, a data frame, a legend, a scale bar, a north arrow, and citation information such as the date, the creator, projection, overview map location etc.

Examples of Cartography & GIS Map Products

MacKinnon E (2000)
8th International Marathon Canoe World Championship Site Map
- designed for the International Marathon Canoe World Championship that were held in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

MacKinnon E (2003)
AGRG Annapolis Valley LIDAR Ground Validation Campaign
- presented at the Geomatics Atlantic 2003 Conference held at Acadia University
in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and posted at the Applied Geomatics Research Group seminar room in Middleton,
Nova Scotia

MacKinnon E (2003)
Jeremy's Bay Campground, Kejimkujik National Park
- campground was surveyed in 2003 and mapped for Parks Canada

MacKinnon E (2003)
Jim Charles Loop of Jeremy's Bay Campground, Kejimkujik National Park
- campground was surveyed in 2003 and mapped for Parks Canada

MacKinnon E (2003)
New Brunswick High Precision Network and AGRG 2003/2004 LIDAR Zones
- presented at the Geomatics Atlantic 2003 Conference held at Acadia University
in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and used during the ground validation survey in New Brunswick

More related publications

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

2008-12-14T05:14:00.001-08:00

Geographic information systems commonly known as GIS has become a rapidly growing technological field that allows Geomatics Specialists to solve and model real world situations by incorporating digital spatial and associated tabular data. It is often defined as a comprehensive computerized information system made up of hardware, specialized software, spatial data and people to help manipulate, analyze and present the information used for storing, manipulating and analyzing spatially indexed information.

GIS operates on many levels and over the past decade has become an essential tool for most urban and resource planning and management organizations. On the most basic level, GIS can be used for simple digital cartography, to create various types of maps. However the real power of GIS is through its abilities to use both spatial and statistical methods to analyze attribute and geographic information together. The end result of such an analysis can be vast amounts of derivative information, interpolated information or prioritized information. Geographic information systems commonly known as GIS has become a rapidly growing technological field that allows Geomatics Specialists to solve and model real world situations by incorporating digital spatial and associated tabular data. It is often defined as a comprehensive computerized information system made up of hardware, specialized software, spatial data and people to help manipulate, analyze and present the information used for storing, manipulating and analyzing spatially indexed information.

GIS operates on many levels and over the past decade has become an essential tool for most urban and resource planning and management organizations. On the most basic level, GIS can be used for simple digital cartography, to create various types of maps. However the real power of GIS is through its abilities to use both spatial and statistical methods to analyze attribute and geographic information together. The end result of such an analysis can be vast amounts of derivative information, interpolated information or prioritized information.

GIS technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource and utilities management, modeling, assessments,
development planning, cartography and route planning and many other applications.. Some of these and other aspects
of the GIS field are currently covered on this website including projects related to
spatial database modeling,
Geostatistical spatial modeling,
mobile mapping,
cartography, and
interactive web mapping.

Examples of GIS

MacKinnon E (2004)

Spatial GIS Vegetation Database and GIS Spatial Modeling at Kejimkujik National Park and Historic Site.

MacKinnon E (2003)
Mobile Mapping Application for Updating AGRG Weather Station data

MacKinnon E (2003)

Mobile Mapping Application - for Updating AGRG Weather Station data

MacKinnon E (2003)

Leica GS20 Professional Data Mapper - AGRG Users Guide

More related publications

Geomatics: helps you discover our world

2008-12-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

Geomatics is a modern discipline which integrates the tasks of gathering, storing, processing, modeling, analyzing, and delivering spatially referenced geographic information. This broad term applies both to the science and the technology aspect of it, and integrates many more specific disciplines and technologies such as Geodesy, GPS surveying, Cartography, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), LIDAR, Photogrammetry, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). It is still a rather new term to most people, and originated here in Canada, however it has recently started to become more popular and been adopted by many international organizations.

One of the reasons for the rapid progress of this discipline, and increased visibility of the industry has been made possible by the advances of computer technology, and software engineering. Our world is constantly changing thus the industry also continues to evolve, and will continue to do so,thus why it is essential for us to keep up with the rapid growth of the Geomatics knowledge, technology, practices and various methods. With out Geomatics we wouldn't have any of the many common everyday items that we all take for granted like automotive GPS navigation systems, Google Maps and the 911 saftey system.

Web design is a broad term that incorporates aspects of developing and creating web pages, web sites and/or web applications. The term often refers mainly to the graphical aspect of web development using images, cascading style sheets (CSS) and hyper text markup language (HTML) standards. However, as the internet continues to rapidly involve we tend to see that web design and web development are becoming more of one discipline and often includes graphical web design, backend programming, web server configuration and dealing with security issues.

Applications created for the web are delivered to users from a server computer over a network such as the internet. They tend to be popular due to the popularity and the easy access web browser technology. The ability to update and maintain applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for it.

They are used for various uses such as to implement web e-mail, online sales, auctions, blogs, and many other functions. It has also become a popular method in geomatics for providing spatial information to a large audience without them having to purchase the high technical specialized software that was used to create the spatial data. This relatively new aspect is often been termed Web GIS or Web Mapping and has become so popular that even non geomatics organizations such as Google and Yahoo have recognized its potential.

This web site was designed to help educate others about some of the many evolving aspects of both Geomatics and Web Design and to demonstrate the potential of it through actual examples. This guide was created to be somewhat simple yet be very informative and should benefit all users; both those with knowledge of geomatics and those who no nothing about it. Like the industry this site too will be constantly evolving.

Welcome to discover our World Music Artists

2008-12-14T04:56:00.000-08:00

Hi! To find out about Kinti Productions please visit our web pages at

http://www.kinti.se

http://myspace.com/kintiproductions

http://womex.com/virtual/kintiproductions

We promote and represent World Music Artists based in Sweden as well as World Music Artists who want to reach the Scandinavian market.

Thanks for your attention.

Earth & Sky

2008-12-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

For the Graham Nash album, see Earth & Sky (album).

Look up ally in

Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Since its initial broadcast in 1991, the Earth & Sky radio series has presented daily information about science and nature to radio listeners from around the world. Earth & Sky's stated mission is to be a "clear voice for science."

Earth & Sky is the creation of veteran radio producers and on-air personalities, Deborah Byrd and Joel Block, whose program "Star Date" began broadcasting in the U.S. in the late 1970s.

Joel Block and Deborah Byrd. Their signature sign-off is, "We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky."

Earth & Sky currently presents 90-second and 60-second radio spots (called "modules") on a wide variety of scientific topics, communicating through terrestrial radio as well as satellite radio and internet radio. Earth & Sky is aired one or more times daily on more than 1,000 commercial, NPR, and other public radio stations, 80 affiliates stations for the sight-impaired, and across 35 channels on both XM and Sirius satellite radio in the United States. Abroad, the programming is heard on American Forces Radio, Voice of America Radio, World Radio Network, and others.

The information on Earth & Sky comes directly from scientists. The journalists who produce the Earth & Sky radio program and web site speak to several scientists each day, dozens each week and hundreds each year. More than 500 scientists have joined Earth & Sky as volunteer advisors. Earth & Sky science advisors suggest content, give feedback, recommend other experts, and review scripts for accuracy before they are recorded for broadcast.

Earth & Sky features many different fields of science. In 2006, its focus is on Nanotechnology, Women in Science, Observing Earth, Astrophysics and Space, and Human World.