During Austral Summer 1993-94 the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS conducted marine geological and geophysical surveys over the Ross Sea, cruise IT91AR. During this cruise 581 km of 30-fold multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) data were collected in the Ross Sea, off the Cape Hallett, between longitudes 171 degrees East and 178 degrees West, and latitudes 71 and 73 degrees South.

In 1993-94 the OGS completed the cruise IT94AR, with 852 km of 30-fold and 673 km of 3-fold multichannel seismic reflection data collected in the Ross Sea, off the coast of the McMurdo Island, between longitudes 168 degrees East and 181 degrees West, and latitudes 73 and 77 degrees South.

The surveys were carried out by the research vessel OGS Explora. The digital MCS data were recorded on a SERCEL SN 358 DMX system. The source consisted of an airgun array with a total volume of 71.5 litres fired approximately every 50 meters into a 3000 m cable consisting of 120 hydrophone groups for the 30-fold profiles and every 250 meters into a 1500 m streamer for the 3-fold profiles. A GPS + TRANSIT satellite receiver system was used for the navigation.

Processing of the data generally followed a conventional sequence:

Reformat, Trace-sum with differential NMO, Quality control, Amplitude recovery, Deconvolution, Velocity analysis, NMO corrections, Mute, Trace weighting, Stack, Mixing, Filter, Balance.