National Gravity Compilation 2019: Complete Bouguer Anomaly Image of Australia

Nearly 1.8 million gravity observations, including ground stations and airborne surveys totaling 451,000 line km, were used to create this 2019 gravity anomaly grid. Geoscience Australia processed and quality-checked the data, which measures subsurface rock density variations in units of micro-meters per second squared. The final image has a cell resolution of approximately 435 meters and covers Australia and its continental margins.

Use Cases

• Map subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Model continental crustal thickness and density variations based on Bouguer anomaly corrections.
• Integrate gravity data with other geophysical surveys for mineral prospectivity analysis.
• Study regional tectonic features based on terrain-corrected gravity measurements.

Strengths

• Integrates nearly 1.8 million observations from ground and airborne sources.
• Data has been quality-checked by GA geophysicists to be fit-for-purpose.
• Combines onshore data from the Australian National Gravity Database with offshore data from global institutions like Scripps and NOAA.
• Station spacing in major parts of the continent is between 2.5 and 7 km, providing regional detail.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic/temporal bias inherent to data_gov_au, with ground data collected from the 1940s onward.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data, supplemented by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA, and NGA.

Collection Method

Processed from ground observations in the Australian National Gravity Database and airborne gravity/gradiometry surveys, with terrain corrections using bathymetry and topography.

Time Range

Ground data from the 1940s to September 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 17:47:12.930321; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.