National Gravity Compilation 2019: DGIR 0.5VD Image of Australia

Australia and its continental margins are covered by a gravity anomaly grid derived from nearly 1.8 million observations. The grid, produced by Geoscience Australia and other government and research bodies, combines ground stations, 345,000 line km of airborne gravity, and 106,000 line km of airborne gravity gradiometry data collected from the 1940s to 2019. It presents the half vertical derivative of de-trended global isostatic residual anomalies at a cell size of approximately 435 meters.

Use Cases

• Modeling subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Enhancing mineral exploration targeting based on high-resolution airborne gravity and gradiometry data.
• Conducting geophysical research on continental crustal composition using processed isostatic residual grids.
• Integrating ground and airborne gravity surveys to improve resolution in areas with sparse ground data.

Strengths

• Integrates nearly 1.8 million gravity observations, including approximately 1.4 million ground stations.
• Incorporates 345,000 line km of airborne gravity and 106,000 line km of airborne gravity gradiometry data for enhanced resolution.
• Data quality was checked by GA geophysicists to ensure it is fit-for-purpose.
• Ground station spacing varies from 11 km down to less than 1 km, with major parts of the continent between 2.5 and 7 km.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-06-27 20:04:22.247715; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, Geoscience Australia, Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, mining industry, universities.

Collection Method

Processed from ground observations in the Australian National Gravity Database, offshore data from Scripps/NOAA/NGA, and airborne surveys.

Time Range

1940s to 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 20:04:22.247715

Geography

Australia and its continental margins