In January 2012 new absolute magnetometers, fluxgate variometers and recording hardware to monitor and record
changes in the Earth’s magnetic field have been installed at Base Orcadas Observatory, in a collaborative project
between the Argentine National Weather Service (SMN), the British Geological Survey (BGS) in Edinburgh and the
Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique, Dourbes as part of the INTERMAGNET Digital Geomagnetic Observatory
(INDIGO) program. This observatory is located on the Argentine Antarctic Base on the South Orkney Islands (Orcadas
del Sur), with the new equipment replacing existing photographic recording equipment which was damaged by an
earthquake in 2003. The equipment is designed to meet INTERMAGNET standards for data quality providing a
one-minute data set which will be corrected to absolute through a program of absolute observations. The original
magnetic observatory at Base Orcadas (the oldest in Antarctica) was installed by the Scottish National Antarctic
Expedition in (SNAE) 1902-04 and recordings of variations in the Earth’s magnetic field have continued since that
time at this remote location