National Gravity Compilation 2019: Airborne DGIR Image of Australia

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 2019 grid. The Australian National Gravity Database, supplemented by global offshore data, provides a de-trended global isostatic residual anomaly image over Australia and its margins. Data acquisition spans from the 1940s to the present day, sourced from government, industry, and research organizations.

Use Cases

• Model subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly data.
• Interpret density variations in the Earth's crust for mineral exploration.
• Analyze continental margin tectonics based on isostatic residual anomalies.
• Assess data coverage and resolution for survey planning in specific regions.

Strengths

• Integrates approximately 1.8 million observations from ground, airborne gravity, and gravity gradiometry surveys.
• Combines data from multiple sources over a long temporal range, from the 1940s to present.
• Grid has a defined cell size of 0.00417 degrees (approximately 435m).
• Data quality was checked by GA geophysicists to be 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.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the aggregation of surveys over decades.

Provenance

Source

Australian National Gravity Database (ANGD) and Global Gravity grid from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA, and NGA.

Collection Method

Processed from ground observations, airborne gravity, and gravity gradiometry data using standard methods and isostatic corrections.

Time Range

1940s to 2019 (as of September 2019 database snapshot).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-28 15:45:43.300809; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and its continental margins.