Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, February 24, 2004
China kicks off first geomagnetic prospecting on Xisha Islands
After a 16-hour hard voyage, a four-member prospecting team from China Seismological Bureau arrived at Yongxing Islet, one of the Xisha Islands on South China Sea, to conduct the country's first task for a field geomagnetic survey on Xisha Islands. After on-the-spot prospecting scientists will set up a long-term observation station for geomagnetic changes of Xisha Islands.
After a 16-hour hard voyage, a four-member prospecting team from China Seismological Bureau arrived at Yongxing Islet, one of the Xisha Islands on South China Sea, to conduct the country's first task for a field geomagnetic survey on Xisha Islands. After on-the-spot prospecting scientists will set up a long-term observation station for geomagnetic changes of Xisha Islands.
The basic data on geomagnetism, a precious resource of a country, is of great significance and wide application in geo-science, resources exploration, aviation and spaceflight, transportation and communication, national defense, earthquake forecasting, environment monitoring, as well as space and weather, said Zhang Yi, person in charge of the surveying work. Terrestrial magnetism survey is a hard but important job in geomagnetic study. If a long-term observation station can be set up this time on Xisha, it will be of tremendous significance in establishing a complete national field geomagnetism survey network and in working out a precise map of China's magnetism distribution.
After completing its task on Xisha, the team would also conduct continuous field surveys in more than 100 prospecting sites in Hainan, Guangdong, Fujian, Anhui and other provinces in the coming two months, covering a distance over 20,000 kilometers.