National Gravity Compilation 2019: Australian Free Air Anomaly Grid

A free air gravity anomaly grid for Australia and its continental margins, derived from approximately 1.8 million ground and airborne observations. The grid incorporates data from the Australian National Gravity Database, global sources, and airborne surveys totaling 345,000 line km of gravity and 106,000 line km of gravity gradiometry data. The compilation was produced by Geoscience Australia and partners using data collected from the 1940s to 2019.

Use Cases

• Model subsurface geological structures based on gravity anomaly patterns.
• Enhance mineral exploration targeting by integrating with other geophysical data.
• Study continental margin tectonics using offshore gravity data sourced from global grids.
• Calibrate regional geophysical models using the detailed station spacing, which ranges from 11 km to less than 1 km.

Strengths

• Integrates a large volume of data, including nearly 1.4 million ground stations and over 450,000 line km of airborne surveys.
• Provides high spatial resolution with a grid cell size of approximately 435 meters.
• Combines multiple data sources, including Commonwealth, State, industry, and university collections, for comprehensive coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data freshness should be verified; the underlying observations are current only to September 2019.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific analytical methods.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia (GA), Australian Ocean Data Network, Commonwealth/State/Territory Governments, mining industry, universities.

Collection Method

Processed from ground observations, airborne gravity and gradiometry surveys, and global offshore grids.

Time Range

1940s to 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 03:15:36.636326; freshness should be verified

Geography

Australia and its continental margins