National Gravity Compilation 2019: Airborne DGIR Image of Australia

A 2019 compilation integrates nearly 1.4 million ground gravity stations, 345,000 line km of airborne gravity, and 106,000 line km of airborne gravity gradiometry data. The Australian Ocean Data Network released this de-trended global isostatic residual anomaly image, derived from the 2019 Australian National Gravity Grids B series. Data sources include the Australian National Gravity Database, global grids, and surveys from government, industry, and academia dating from the 1940s to 2019.

Use Cases

• Model subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Enhance mineral exploration targeting by interpreting density variations in the crust.
• Calibrate or validate regional geophysical models using the integrated ground and airborne data.
• Study isostatic compensation and tectonic features across the Australian continent and margins.

Strengths

• Integrates a massive volume of observations: nearly 1.4 million ground stations and 451,000 line km of airborne surveys.
• Data quality is explicitly checked for fitness-for-purpose by GA (Geoscience Australia) geophysicists.
• Provides high-resolution coverage with a grid cell size of approximately 435 meters.
• Combines multi-source data from ground, airborne, and offshore global grids for comprehensive spatial coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The temporal coverage is broad (1940s to 2019), which may introduce inconsistencies in measurement techniques over time.
• Row count and exact file sizes are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, incorporating data from Geoscience Australia, Commonwealth/State/Territory Governments, industry, universities, and global institutions (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA, NGA).

Collection Method

Processed from the 2019 Australian National Gravity Grids B series, derived from ground observations in the Australian National Gravity Database and supplemented by airborne and offshore gravity data.

Time Range

1940s to 2019 (collection period for source data).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 09:33:05.810477; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.