Sakhalin Island GPS Survey: A Case History

Paul Godwin, Sergey Duginov, John Brown

Abstract:	In December 1993 a consortium of Mobil and Texaco was awarded exploration and production rights for the Kirin block, offshore northeast Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East Territories. Existing seismic data was positioned by various radio navigation systems, whose base station I transponders had been located by TRANSIT receivers operated in the point positioning mode. A static mode GPS survey was conducted to verify the existing ad hoc network, and tie this network to a global system by post- processing with tracking data from the International GPS Service for Geodynamics (IGS). With these confirmations, the consortium believed it would be possible to better estimate the accuracy of the existing seismic data locations and establish absolute control positioning for future work. The GPS field work, based out of Nogliki, was conducted by ROMONA in July 1994 and the initial in-field processing was also performed there for QC purposes before demobilising. Subsequently, befa release Trimble software (GPSurvey vl.98), licenced by Geodetic Technology Company, was loaded on a laptop PC and the long baseline processing, to effect the ties to three IGS stations, was performed in Moscow. The Canadian Energy and Mineral Resources program SPARC (now called GEOPACE) was used to compute absolute point positions to confirm the GPSurvey processing. Results exceeded expectations. Estimated accuracy between the Sakhalin network and the three IGS stations are +/- 6cm horizontal and +/- 15cm (1 sigma) in the vertical. Differences between IGS ties and SPARC positions were at the sub-metre level. PC based off-the-shelf software capable of taking advantage of IGS data allows GPS surveying to achieve cost effective ties to a global geodetic network at a speed that minimises the impact on overall project cycle time. The power of this new utility requires that client companies select contractors with the proper training and experience and also that software developers rewgnise the necessity for extensive quality control of both the data and operators’ inputs.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 8th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1995) September 12 - 15, 1995 Palm Springs, CA
Pages:	93 - 104
Cite this article:	Godwin, Paul, Duginov, Sergey, Brown, John, "Sakhalin Island GPS Survey: A Case History," Proceedings of the 8th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1995), Palm Springs, CA, September 1995, pp. 93-104.
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