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

Nearly 1.4 million gravity stations from the Australian National Gravity Database, supplemented by marine data, were used to generate this 2019 grid. Geoscience Australia processed ground and offshore data collected from the 1940s onward to produce a half vertical derivative of de-trended global isostatic residual anomalies. The resulting grid has a cell size of approximately 435 meters and covers the Australian continent and its margins.

Use Cases

• Map subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Identify potential mineral exploration targets based on density contrasts revealed in the grid.
• Integrate with other geophysical datasets for regional crustal modeling.
• Study isostatic compensation and tectonic features across the Australian continent.

Strengths

• Derived from nearly 1.4 million gravity stations, providing dense spatial coverage.
• Integrates decades of data collected from the 1940s to present by government, industry, and academia.
• Processed and quality-checked by Geoscience Australia geophysicists to be fit-for-purpose.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Station spacing for the source ground observations varies from 11 km to less than 1 km, indicating uneven data density.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data, incorporating data from Commonwealth, State, and Territory Governments, the mining industry, universities, and global marine sources.

Collection Method

Ground gravity observations and offshore data processed via standard methods, including Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

Time Range

Source data collected from the 1940s to present, compiled as of September 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:17:40.523712; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.