Spats - A South Pole Acoustic Test Setup

Due to its large Greeneisen coefficient ice is of special interest for the acoustic detection of ultra-high energetic neutrino-induced cascades. The abundant homogeneous volume and an existing neutrino observatory make the south polar ice cap a favourable location for this purpose. Theoretical calculations yield absorption lengths of similar to 10 km, but no measurements at all are available in the frequency range of interest. We present an experimental setup to measure the key parameters of the antarctic glacial ice.