An extensive program of seismic refraction and reflection shooting was undertaken in the vicinity of Dome C station, East Antarctica (latitude 74°39'S, longitude 124°10'E). Refraction experiments (1978–79, 1979–80) were performed at 37 different shot-point-to-center-of-spread distances along four lines of different azimuth using receiver spacings of 2 to 30 m. The principal result is an extremely well-determined velocity-depth relation for the upper few hundred meters of the ice sheet. Availability of good bore-hole control at Dome C allows us to demonstrate the validity of Kohne's (1972) density-velocity formula, which was developed for warmer ice. Also, after a careful search for azimuthal dependence of variations in the time-distance relationship along different refraction lines, deviations from transverse isotropy in the firn and upper ice are not indicated. Our reflection work (1979–80), conducted along three mutually-centered lines (10.2, 10.2, and 10.7 km in length) oriented at 60° angles to one another, used a series of 16 bore holes, each 30 m in depth, and 18 separate 24-channel recording stations. This extensive coverage combined with common reflection-point shooting geometries (to minimize topographic error) and small charge sizes (to increase resolution) yielded the highest quality set of reflection data yet obtained in East Antarctica. Significant crystalline anisotropy in the lower portion of the ice sheet is indicated. A model with 75% of the ice thickness below the firn (approximately 2 400 m) having c-axes distributed throughout a vertical cone with a semi-apex angle of 20° gives good agreement with the field observations.