About the NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility

The GEF forms part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Scientific support and Facilities portfolio. We support high-quality, peer reviewed projects across a broad spectrum of earth and environmental sciences by provision of internationally-recognised, state-of-the-art geophysical instrumentation for marine and land-based field experiments.

The GEF consists of three nodes:-

• GEF Edinburgh
  • Managed by the University of Edinburgh
  • Contract holder: Dr Richard Essery - richard[dot]essery[at]ed [dot] ac [dot] uk
• GEF Leicester: Seis-UK
  • Managed by the University of Leicester
  • Contract holder: Prof Richard England - rwe5[at]le [dot] ac [dot] uk
• Ocean Bottom Instrument Facility: OBIF
  • Managed by the University of Durham
  • Prof Christine Peirce - info[at]obs [dot] ac [dot] uk
  • and the University of Southampton
  • Prof Tim Henstock - info[at]obs [dot] ac [dot] uk

and is guided by the NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility Steering Committee (GEFSC).

History of the Steering Committee

1989

The Geomagnetic Equipment Pool and the Seismic Equipment Pool combine to form the Geophysical Equipment Pool Management Committee (GEPMC).

2003

Seis-UK is added as a node to the Geophysical Equipment Pool and the committee is renamed to the Geophysical Equipment Facility Steering Committee (GEFSC).

2007

The Ocean Bottom Instrument Facility (OBIF) is added as a third node.

2013/14

The management of the GEF is transferred, along with other facilities, from the NERC Swindon Office to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The committee combines with the BIGF and SGF to become the NERC Geophysics and Geodesy Facilities Steering Committee (NGGFSC).

2018

The BIGF and SGF are removed from the remit of the committee which again becomes the Geophysical Equipment Facility Steering Committee (GEFSC).

Useful Links

Manufacturers and Suppliers to the GEF

• Leica Geosystems supply the GEF with Global Navigational Satellite System receivers, Laser Scanning equipment and software.
• Sensors and Software in Canada manufacture the Pulse EKKO range of GPRs.
• Geonics manufacture the PROTEM time-domain geomagnetic system.
• Phoenix Geophysics manufacture our magnetotelluric systems.
• Sandmeier Scientific Software supply the Reflex processing package.
• Guralp Systems, Nanometrics and Reftek supply seismometers and data loggers.
• 3D Laser Mapping supply the Riegl VZ-1000 laser scanner and software.
• Wind and Sun supply our solar panels and regulators.

Other NERC Facilities

• NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility, also within Edinburgh University School of GeoSciences.
• The NERC Airborne Research and Survey Facility (ARF).
• The British Isles Continuous GNSS Facility (BIGF) holds the UK archive of GPS and GLONASS data.
• The NERC Space Geodesy Facility operates a Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) station, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) sites and a permanently installed Absolute Gravimeter (AG).

Data Archiving

• The National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) is recognised as the NERC Environmental Data Centre for geoscience data.
• IRIS-DMC archives seismological data generated by Seis-UK projects.