National Gravity Compilation 2019: First Vertical Derivative Image of Australia

Australia and its continental margins are covered by this gravity anomaly image derived from the 2019 national grid. The grid incorporates nearly 1.4 million ground stations from the Australian National Gravity Database and offshore data, with observations collected from the 1940s to 2019. Geoscience Australia processed the data, applying terrain corrections and a Fourier transform to produce a first vertical derivative image with a cell size of approximately 435 meters.

Use Cases

• Interpret geological structures of the sub-surface based on processed gravity anomaly data.
• Model density variations in the Earth's crust for mineral exploration based on the Bouguer anomaly grid.
• Integrate gravity data with other geophysical surveys for regional geological mapping, leveraging the national compilation.
• Study continental margin geology using the combined onshore and offshore gravity data sources.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million gravity observations, including nearly 1.4 million ground stations.
• Data collection spans from the 1940s to 2019, providing a long-term historical record.
• Station spacing varies from 11 km to less than 1 km, with major parts of the continent covered at 2.5 to 7 km intervals.
• Terrain corrections were applied using both offshore bathymetry and onshore topography data.

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 data from Commonwealth, State, Territory Governments, industry, universities, and research organisations.

Collection Method

Ground and marine gravity observations processed via standard methods and FFT to create a spherical cap Bouguer anomaly grid.

Time Range

1940s to 2019 (with database snapshot as of September 2019).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:39:14.790851; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.