National Gravity Compilation 2019: Airborne CSCBA 0.5VD Grid for Australia

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. The Australian National Gravity Database, supplemented by global offshore data and airborne surveys, provides a foundation for revealing sub-surface geological structure. Geoscience Australia processed and quality-checked the data, which includes terrain corrections and a first vertical derivative transformation.

Use Cases

• Modeling subsurface geological structures based on complete spherical cap Bouguer anomaly data.
• Enhancing mineral exploration targeting in areas with sparse ground data using integrated airborne gravity and gradiometry surveys.
• Conducting geophysical research on continental margins using data that combines onshore topography and offshore bathymetry corrections.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million observations from ground, airborne gravity (345,000 line km), and airborne gravity gradiometry (106,000 line km) sources.
• Provides high-resolution data with a grid cell size of approximately 435 meters (0.00417 degrees).
• Combines data from multiple sources and eras, with ground data collected from the 1940s to present, offering historical depth.

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.
• Station and line spacing varies significantly across the continent, which may create regional inconsistencies in data density.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, aggregating data from Commonwealth, State, Territory Governments, industry, universities, and global sources like Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

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

Ground and airborne data collected from the 1940s to present, compiled as of September 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 06:38:42.553156; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.