The Siple Coast ice streams exhibit rapid ice flow under low driving stress. Processes that control ice streaming in turn prescribes the ice stream system’s ability to evolve and contribute to, or respond to ice sheet evolution. The location where streaming begins, the onset, is the optimal place to identify these controlling factors by their variation both along and across the flow direction of the incipient ice stream. During the 2001/02 austral-summer we began a two-season field program to study the onsets of ice streams C and D, West Antarctica. We established a primary survey grid centered on the previously identified onset of ice steam D and secondary grids at corresponding locations for two tributaries of ice stream C. Our field activities included ice motion surveys, shallow-sounding and deep-sounding radar and firn-core accumulation rate measurements. The ice motion measurements on ice stream D will be able to detect any substantial flow variations since a survey of the region conducted during the mid-1990’s. The shallow-sounding radar allows high-resolution stratigraphic imaging down to approximately 100 meters. Layer undulations revealed by these surveys are indicative of shear margin development as well as generation of flow stripes. The deep-sounding radar surveys image the bed and resolve layering to approximately half-depth. With these data we are pursuing characterization of the basal interface including its roughness and the presence of water. In our subsequent field season we will conduct high-resolution seismic sounding surveys at sites targeted by results from our first season’s results. We will give an overview of our research objectives and experiment design and present preliminary results from shallow and deep-sounding radar measurements.