National Gravity Compilation 2019: Australian Airborne and Ground Gravity Grid

Nearly 1.8 million gravity observations, including 1.4 million ground stations and 451,000 line km of airborne surveys, were used to create this 2019 grid. Geoscience Australia processed and quality-checked data from government, industry, and research sources dating from the 1940s to produce a half vertical derivative of the complete Bouguer anomalies. The resulting grid has a cell size of approximately 435 meters and covers Australia and its continental margins.

Use Cases

• Modeling subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly patterns.
• Enhancing mineral exploration targeting by integrating airborne gravity gradiometry data.
• Calibrating regional geophysical models using a long-term data collection spanning from the 1940s.
• Studying continental margin geology by combining onshore gravity data with offshore global gravity datasets.

Strengths

• Integrates a large volume of observations: nearly 1.8 million gravity stations and 451,000 line km of airborne surveys.
• Combines multiple data sources, including ground observations, airborne gravity, gravity gradiometry, and global offshore data.
• Data has undergone standard processing and quality checks by GA geophysicists to be fit-for-purpose.
• Provides high resolution with station spacing down to less than 1 km in parts and a grid cell size of ~435m.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data collection spans a very long period (1940s-present), which may introduce methodological inconsistencies over time.
• The description does not specify the license terms for use and redistribution.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data, incorporating data from Commonwealth, State, Territory Governments, mining industry, universities, and research organisations.

Collection Method

Data processed from the Australian National Gravity Database and global grids, with terrain corrections and a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) applied to produce a first vertical derivative grid.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:40:53.450241; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.