Zhongshan Station, Antarctic Pole (CNS) -- China's 28th Antarctic expedition team placed a domestically developed ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) in the Prydz Bay of Antarctica at 5:24 p.m. on December 17, local time (8:24 p.m., Dec. 17th, Beijing time). The device will be tracking signs of earthquake activity under the Antarctica continent and its surrounding waters.
Deployed by experts Pei Yanliang and KanGuangming from the First Institute of Oceanography under the State Oceanic Administration, the seismometer will be retrieving data until March 2012. By then, the data packs will be sent back to inform studies with a variety of angles: the structure and status of the upper mantle and the central and lower parts of the earth's crust, the fracture dynamic and the historical reformation of the ancient Gondwanaland, the boundary and crust structure of the Antarctic plate, the mantle movements during the formation of large volcanic rocks, as well as the formation and evolution of sedimentation basins.
The deployment site of the OBS is around 69 degrees south latitude and 76 degrees east longitude, 571 meters beneath the surface. Another OBS will be positioned in the north part of the same bay to boost the volume of information gathered.
