National Gravity Compilation 2019: Australian Airborne and Ground Gravity Grid

A gravity anomaly grid for Australia and its continental margins derived from approximately 1.8 million ground and airborne observations. The grid has a cell size of 0.00417 degrees (approximately 435m) and incorporates data from the 1940s to 2019, processed by Geoscience Australia. It includes nearly 1.4 million ground stations, 345,000 line km of airborne gravity, and 106,000 line km of airborne gravity gradiometry data.

Use Cases

• Model subsurface density variations based on processed gravity anomaly measurements.
• Interpret geological structures for mineral exploration based on the derived vertical derivative grid.
• Integrate gravity data with other geophysical surveys for regional geological mapping.
• Assess data coverage and resolution for specific areas based on described station and line spacing.

Strengths

• Integrates a large volume of data from multiple sources, including nearly 1.4 million ground stations and 451,000 line km of airborne surveys.
• Data quality is checked by GA geophysicists, and the description details specific processing steps like terrain corrections and FFT application.
• Provides high spatial resolution with a grid cell size of approximately 435m and variable station spacing down to less than 1 km.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified; the underlying data is current only to September 2019.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, mining industry, universities, and research organisations.

Collection Method

Grid derived from ground observations, offshore global gravity data, and airborne gravity/gradiometry surveys, processed via standard methods and FFT.

Time Range

1940s to 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 02:20:17.965664; underlying data current to September 2019.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins