The European Physical Society has awarded Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory with an EPS Historic Site as an acknowledgment of the observatory’s long-term work. Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory is the first EPS Historic site in Finland. The President of EPS Luc Bergé revealed the award in Sodankylä on Thursday 8^th December.

Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory was founded in 1913 by The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters to perform long-term geophysical observations, study changing geo- and space environments, and coordinate international space projects in Finland. When the Observatory was established, it was one of the first observatories north of the Arctic circle. The longest data set is over 100 years long (since 1914), including measurements of fluctuations in the geomagnetic field.

Today, the Observatory is an independent research organization within the University of Oulu having a wide range of national and international duties. These include ongoing geomagnetic observations and world-class space and arctic situational awareness and research capabilities. The Observatory has dedicated instruments in over twenty measurement locations from Svalbard to Antarctica.

“Observatories are a society’s long-term memory and the backbone for national contingency planning. Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory has an important role in observational space- and geoscience, in understanding the reasons for the fast changes of the Arctic polar area and in the long-term monitoring of natural hazards of the space- and geoenvironments” says the Director of the observatory, Professor Eija Tanskanen.

More information:

• https://www.oulu.fi/en/university/sodankyla-geophysical-observatory
• www.sgo.fi

Luc Bergé presenting the EPS Historic Site plaquette to the director and the vice-director of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, Eija Tanskanen and Tero Raita
Photo credit: Mikko Orispää