National Gravity Compilation 2019 includes airborne CSCBA 1VD image

Nearly 1.8 million gravity observations, including ground stations and airborne surveys totaling 451,000 line km, were used to generate this 2019 national grid. The Australian Ocean Data Network released this first vertical derivative image of the complete spherical cap Bouguer anomaly, processed via FFT from data in the Australian National Gravity Database and global sources. Ground data spans from the 1940s to 2019, with station spacing as dense as less than 1 km in parts of the continent.

Use Cases

• Modeling subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Enhancing mineral exploration targeting by interpreting density variations in the crust.
• Integrating with other geophysical datasets for continental margin studies, as the grid includes offshore data.
• Studying long-term changes in gravity data, which incorporates observations from the 1940s onward.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million gravity observations from multiple sources, including nearly 1.4 million ground stations.
• Incorporates 451,000 line km of airborne gravity and gravity gradiometry surveys to improve resolution in areas with poor ground data.
• Grid cell size is 0.00417 degrees (approximately 435m), providing a detailed national-scale view.
• Data quality was checked by GA geophysicists to ensure it is fit-for-purpose.

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.
• Freshness should be verified; the underlying gravity database snapshot is from September 2019.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, incorporating data from the Australian National Gravity Database, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA, NGA, and various government and industry sources.

Collection Method

Processed from ground and airborne gravity observations, supplemented with global gravity grids, using spherical cap Bouguer anomaly calculations and FFT for the vertical derivative.

Time Range

Ground data from the 1940s to September 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 02:03:22.915283; underlying data snapshot from September 2019.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.