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

Approximately 1.8 million gravity observations, including nearly 1.4 million ground stations and 451,000 line km of airborne surveys, were used to generate this grid. The Australian Ocean Data Network released this dataset, which shows the half vertical derivative of de-trended global isostatic residual anomalies over Australia and its continental margins. The grid has a cell size of 0.00417 degrees (approximately 435m) and incorporates data collected from the 1940s to 2019.

Use Cases

• Model subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Identify potential mineral deposits based on density variations in the Earth's crust.
• Enhance regional geological maps based on high-resolution airborne gravity and gradiometry data.
• Calibrate or validate other geophysical survey methods based on the processed gravity grid.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million observations from ground, airborne, and offshore sources.
• Includes 451,000 line km of airborne gravity and gravity gradiometry data for improved resolution.
• Data quality was checked by GA geophysicists to ensure it is fit-for-purpose.
• Station spacing for ground observations varies from 11 km down to less than 1 km, providing detailed coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

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 surveys.

Collection Method

Processed from ground and airborne observations using standard methods and a fast Fourier transform (FFT) to calculate the half vertical derivative.

Time Range

1940s to 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 21:27:32.501276; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins