2019 Australian National Gravity Grids: Free Air Anomaly, Complete Bouguer Anomaly, De-trended Global Isostatic Residual, 400 m cell size (includes Point Located Data)

N.B., The DGIR grids, A7 and B7, were updated on 20 October 2020 after low amplitude, short wavelength artefacts were found in the original grids. If you have previously downloaded either of the DGIR grids, Geoscience Australia recommends you download the new versions of these grids (i.e., A7_2019_DGIR_v2 and B7_2019_GDIR_v2). The other grids were not updated since the artefacts are not present in these grids.

This series of grids represent the combination of gravity data stored in the Australian National Gravity Database (ANGD) as of September 2019, Airborne Gravity/gravity gradiometry data in the National Australian Geophysical Database (NAGD), and the Global Gravity Grid from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All the grids have a cell size of 400 metres, an improvement from 800 metres.

Gravity data have been acquired by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, the mining and exploration industry, universities and research organisations from the 1940’s to the present day. Station spacing varies from approximately 11 km down to less than 1 km, with major parts of the continent having station spacing between 2.5 and 7 km. The ANGD contains over 1.8 million observations, of which nearly 1.4 million were considered suitable for inclusion in the calculation of this grid. The 2016 versions of the Australian National Gravity Grids were masked to the coastline. In contrast, in 2019 we chose to supplement the onshore data with offshore data that were sourced from v28.1 of the Global Gravity grid developed using data from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. This provides valuable context to the onshore ground gravity data. Airborne Gravity Gradiometry surveys totalling 345,000 line km and 106,000 line km of Airborne Gravity Gradiometry were included to provide better resolution to areas where ground gravity data was not of a suitable quality.
These grids were produced by Geoscience Australia and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS Science).
The grids are organised into 2 series of 3 gravity and 2 supplementary grids. The gravity grids provide Free Air Anomaly (FAA), Complete Bouguer Anomaly (CBA), and De-trended Global Isostatic Residual (DGIR) values. The supplementary grids provide the elevation values that define the observation surface for the relevant set of gravity grids, referenced to the geoid and GRS80 ellipsoid for the GDA94 datum. A more complete description of the grids and their details are located in the explanatory notes.

The “A” Series grids were produced from a combination of ground gravity data for Australian onshore locations, gravity data derived from satellite altimetry for offshore locations, and gravity data from the EGM2008 global gravity model for the onshore locations in countries other than Australia.

The “B” Series grids includes the gravity data used in the A Series grids, with the addition of data from a number of airborne gravity and airborne gravity gradiometer surveys. All of the data in the “B” series grids (i.e., ground, sea surface and airborne) were vertically continued to a smooth drape surface with a minimum terrain clearance of 250m.

The grids are available to download as a complete package, which includes all grids, the explanatory notes, and associated documentation. Each grid is also available as a discrete dataset for download, including the explanatory notes and other documentation. The explanatory notes are also available as a separate download via its own publication entry.

This series of grids represent the combination of gravity data stored in the Australian National Gravity Database (ANGD) as of September 2019, Airborne Gravity/gravity gradiometry data in the National Australian Geophysical Database (NAGD), and the Global Gravity Grid from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). N.B., The DGIR grids, A7 and B7, were updated on 20 October 2020 after low amplitude, short wavelength artefacts were found in the original grids. If you have downloaded either of the DGIR grids prior to 20 October 2020, Geoscience Australia recommends you download the new versions of these grids (i.e., A7_2019_DGIR_v2 and B7_ 2019_GDIR_v2). The other grids were not updated since the artefacts are not present in these grids.

In addition, a copy of the Point Located Data is provided for public download. This dataset contains all publicly available ground gravity data as of September 2019. Clients wishing to use only the data included in the national grids can filter the dataset using the “gridding_flag” field where it equals one (“1”). The flag has been updated to reflect the changes resulting from creating the grids.

Tags: Complete Bouguer Anomaly, EARTH SCIENCES, Free Air Anomaly, Geophysics, Gravity, Grid, National Geophysical Compilation, Off shore, Onshore, Published_Internal
Organization: Geoscience Australia Data