National Gravity Compilation 2019: Half-Vertical Derivative Grid of Australia

Nearly 1.8 million gravity observations, including 1.4 million ground stations and extensive airborne surveys, were processed to create this 2019 grid. Geoscience Australia compiled data from government, industry, and research sources dating from the 1940s to 2019. The resulting image shows a half vertical derivative of complete Bouguer anomalies at a cell size of approximately 435 meters across Australia and its continental margins.

Use Cases

• Map subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Identify potential mineral deposits based on density contrasts revealed in the processed grid.
• Integrate with other geophysical datasets for regional crustal modeling based on the continental-scale coverage.
• Study tectonic features and basin architecture based on the derived half vertical derivative signal.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million observations from multiple sources, including ground, airborne, and offshore data.
• Station spacing varies from 11 km to less than 1 km, with major parts of the continent covered at 2.5 to 7 km resolution.
• Data underwent quality checks by GA geophysicists and standard processing methods, including terrain corrections.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific analytical methods.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data, incorporating the Australian National Gravity Database and global offshore data from Scripps, NOAA, and NGA.

Collection Method

Ground and airborne gravity surveys processed via standard methods and FFT to create a half vertical derivative grid.

Time Range

Data acquired from the 1940s to September 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 00:58:22.035038; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.