Magnetomer Data Formats and Examples

1. Introduction

This set of magnetometer data is in raw or unprocessed form and is provided in separate directories for each station along with the associated station logfile, stn.log. The data is made available for public use without any guaranty as to its quality or completeness.

In addition to the data provided here IPS holds a number of additional datasets that may be made avaiable upon request.

2. Data File Format

Following is the information relating to the filename and data formats. Examples of geomagnetic field data for both quiet and active days as well as examples of spurious data that may be encountered within this data set can be found here.

The filenames containing the raw or unprocessed magnetometer data have the form:
mlYYMMDD.stn
where:
m = letter "m"
l = an identifier letter for internal use within IPS with definitions given in the station parameters file.
YY = 2 digit year
MM = 2 digit month
DD = 2 digit day
stn = three letter station abbreviation code.

Data is written to files in the following format:
The first line is a one-line header of station parameters file. that provide limited information relating to the field station and equipment used. The remaining lines of the file are the data records. Each record is of the form:

hh mm ss data1 data2 .... dataN

where:
hh = the UT hour the measurement was taken
mm = the minute the measurement was taken
ss = the second the measurement was taken
data1 data2 ......dataN = the measurements in nano-Tesla for the N geomagnetic field components as defined in the one-line header of station parameters file.

The format of each data record is also given in the one-line header of each file as defined by the station parameters file.