The Mid-Atlantic Ridge Near 45 °N. XX. The Gravity Field

1972 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 942-959 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Woodside

Detailed maps of free-air, Bouguer, and residual gravity anomalies for a survey area 250 km wide across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between 45° and 46 °N have been compiled. The Bouguer anomaly was terrain-corrected to a radius of 40 km. The residual anomaly was computed from the terrain-corrected Bouguer anomaly using an empirical linear relationship between the Bouguer anomaly and the bathymetry to predict a 'regional' Bouguer anomaly from the depth data. North–south and east–west trends in the gravity data are enhanced in the residual anomaly; and it is suggested that at least one short east–west transform fault may offset the ridge in a right-lateral sense. The offset is presumably a response to a change in sea-floor spreading direction from west–northwest/east–southeast to west/east about 10 m.y. ago. A change in spreading rate may have occurred at the same time. A difference in accretion rate on either side of the ridge axis is indicated by asymmetry in the gravity data and by differences in the topographic compensation across the axis. Variations in the relationship of terrain-corrected Bouguer anomaly to bathymetry within the survey area suggest that a density deficiency or buoyant forces in the upper mantle are responsible for the overall elevation of the crestal mountain region but that the topography of the high-fractured plateau may be partially compensated by undulations of the crust–mantle interface.

This study aims to determine the relationship of heat reservoirs in the Kelud, Kasinan-Songgoriti, and Arjuno-Welirang geothermal systems based on gravity data analysis. Gravity data are obtained from Geodetic Satellite (GEOSAT) and European Remote Sensing-1 (ERS-1) Satellite which have been corrected to free air correction. The result of gravity data analysis is in the form of a complete Bouguer anomaly which represents the gravity anomaly below the surface. The results of the complete Bouguer anomaly value obtained were -15,238 mGal to 86,087 mGal. Based on these results, regional anomalies and residual anomalies will be separated to determine the depth of the two anomalies. 3D modeling was carried out based on the complete Bouguer anomaly data to determine the reservoir relationships in the Kelud, Kasinan-Songgoriti, and Arjuno-Welirang geothermal systems.


Geophysics ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (12) ◽  
pp. 1785-1791 ◽  
Author(s):  
El‐Sayed M. Abdelrahman ◽  
Hesham M. El‐Araby

The gravity anomaly expression produced by most geologic structures can be represented by a continuous function in both shape (shape factor) and depth variables with an amplitude coefficient related to the mass. Correlation factors between successive least‐squares residual gravity anomalies from a buried vertical cylinder, horizontal cylinder, and sphere are used to determine the shape and depth of the buried geologic structure. For each shape factor value, the depth is determined automatically from the correlation value. The computed depths are plotted against the shape factor representing a continuous correlation curve. The solution for the shape and depth of the buried structure is read at the common intersection of correlation curves. This method can be applied to a Bouguer anomaly profile consisting of a residual component caused by local structure and a regional component. This is a powerful technique for automatically separating the Bouguer data into residual and regional polynomial components. This method is tested on theoretical examples and a field example. In both cases, the results obtained are in good agreement with drilling results.


The theory of the application of gravity measurements to geodetic calculations is discussed, and the errors involved in calculating deflexions of the vertical are estimated. If the gravity data are given as free air anomalies from Jeffreys’s (1948) formula, so thdt the second and third harmonics of gravity are assumed known, the orders of magnitude of the standard deviations of the different sources of error are the following: Single deflexion: neglect of gravity outside 20° 1" Difference of deflexions: neglect of gravity outside 5° 0"·5 Calculation of effects of gravity from 0º·05 to 5° 0"·1 Calculation of effects of gravity within 0º·05 between 0"·1 and 0"·5 Estimates of the deflexions are made for Greenwich, Herstmonceux, Southampton and Bayeux, and the difference between Greenwich and Southampton is compared with the astronomical and geodetic amplitudes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavol Zahorec ◽  
Juraj Papčo ◽  
Roman Pašteka ◽  

<p>First unified complete Bouguer anomaly map of AlpArray area compiled from terrestrial gravity data is in preparation. The following steps to calculate the first version of the map were performed: 1. unification of different spatial, height and gravity systems, 2. getting available detailed (mainly LiDAR-based) elevation models and their transformation from physical to ellipsoidal heights, 3. calculation of mass corrections (gravity effect of the topography between the surface and ellipsoid level) with density 2 670 kg/m<sup>3</sup>, 4. calculation of bathymetric corrections for water masses below the ellipsoid (correction density -1 640 kg/m<sup>3</sup>), 5. calculation of lake correction for great alpine lakes (correction density -1 670 kg/m<sup>3</sup>), 6. calculation of the final complete Bouguer anomalies based on normal field (Somigliana formula with GRS80 parameters, free-air correction using Taylor series expansion to the 2<sup>nd</sup> order) and particular corrections including also the atmospheric correction.</p><p>The quality control of input data was performed based on the height differences between the point data and particular elevation models. Several thousand points with height residuals higher than chosen threshold (±50 m) were excluded. The available detailed local elevation models (resolution 10 – 20 m) were compared with global model MERIT (resolution 25 m).</p><p>The most significant methodological innovation is the ellipsoidal heights concept using straightforward calculation of mass/bathymetric corrections in respect to the ellipsoid instead of using the geophysical indirect effect computation. Our specially developed program Toposk was used for mass/bathymetric correction calculation (the standard distance of 166.7 km was used for the first version of the map) as well as for the calculation of lake corrections. Mass corrections amount to hundreds of mGal, while the lake corrections reach more than 5 mGal locally. Atmospheric effect taking into account topography was also calculated and compared with standard atmospheric correction.</p><p> </p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Seoane ◽  
Benjamin Beirens ◽  
Guillaume Ramillien

<p>We propose to cumulate complementary gravity data, i.e. geoid height and (radial) free-air gravity anomalies, to evaluate the 3-D shape of the sea floor more precisely. For this purpose, an Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF) scheme has been developed to construct the topographic solution by injecting gravity information progressively. The main advantage of this sequential cumulation of data is the reduction of the dimensions of the inverse problem. Non linear Newtonian operators have been re-evaluated from their original forms and elastic compensation of the topography is also taken into account. The efficiency of the method is proved by inversion of simulated gravity observations to converge to a stable topographic solution with an accuracy of only a few meters. Real geoid and gravity data are also inverted to estimate bathymetry around the New England and Great Meteor seamount chains. Error analysis consists of comparing our topographic solutions to accurate single beam ship tracks for validation.</p>


Science ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 340 (6140) ◽  
pp. 1552-1555 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. Melosh ◽  
Andrew M. Freed ◽  
Brandon C. Johnson ◽  
David M. Blair ◽  
Jeffrey C. Andrews-Hanna ◽  
...  

High-resolution gravity data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft have clarified the origin of lunar mass concentrations (mascons). Free-air gravity anomalies over lunar impact basins display bull’s-eye patterns consisting of a central positive (mascon) anomaly, a surrounding negative collar, and a positive outer annulus. We show that this pattern results from impact basin excavation and collapse followed by isostatic adjustment and cooling and contraction of a voluminous melt pool. We used a hydrocode to simulate the impact and a self-consistent finite-element model to simulate the subsequent viscoelastic relaxation and cooling. The primary parameters controlling the modeled gravity signatures of mascon basins are the impactor energy, the lunar thermal gradient at the time of impact, the crustal thickness, and the extent of volcanic fill.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Sanchez-Rojas

A new gravity data compilation for Venezuela was processed and homogenized. Gravity was measured in reference to the International Gravity Standardization Net 1971, and the complete Bouguer anomaly was calculated by using the Geodetic Reference System 1980 and 2.67 Mg/m3. A regional gravity map was computed by removing wavelengths higher than 200 km from the Bouguer anomaly. After the anomaly separation, regional and residual Bouguer gravity fields were then critically discussed in term of the regional tectonic features. Results were compared with the previous geological and tectonic information obtained from former studies. Gravity and topography data in the spectral domain were used to examine the elastic thickness and depths of the structures of the causative measured anomaly. According to the power spectrum analysis results of the gravity data, the averaged Moho depths for the massif, plains, and mountainous areas in Venezuela are 42, 35, and 40 km, respectively. The averaged admittance function computed from the topography and Free-Air anomaly profiles across Mérida Andes showed a good fit for a regional compensation model with an effective elastic thickness of 15 km.


Geophysics ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 754-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valéria C. F. Barbosa ◽  
João B. C. Silva ◽  
Walter E. Medeiros

We present a new, stable method for interpreting the basement relief of a sedimentary basin which delineates sharp discontinuities in the basement relief and incorporates any law known a priori for the spatial variation of the density contrast. The subsurface region containing the basin is discretized into a grid of juxtaposed elementary prisms whose density contrasts are the parameters to be estimated. Any vertical line must intersect the basement relief only once, and the mass deficiency must be concentrated near the earth’s surface, subject to the observed gravity anomaly being fitted within the experimental errors. In addition, upper and lower bounds on the density contrast of each prism are introduced a priori (one of the bounds being zero), and the method assigns to each elementary prism a density contrast which is close to either bound. The basement relief is therefore delineated by the contact between the prisms with null and nonnull estimated density contrasts, the latter occupying the upper part of the discretized region. The method is stabilized by introducing constraints favoring solutions having the attributes (shared by most sedimentary basins) of being an isolated compact source with lateral borders dipping either vertically or toward the basin center and having horizontal dimensions much greater than its largest vertical dimension. Arbitrary laws of spatial variations of the density contrast, if known a priori, may be incorporated into the problem by assigning suitable values to the nonnull bound of each prism. The proposed method differs from previous stable methods by using no smoothness constraint on the interface to be estimated. As a result, it may be applied not only to intracratonic sag basins where the basement relief is essentially smooth but also to rift basins whose basements present discontinuities caused by faults. The method’s utility in mapping such basements was demonstrated in tests using synthetic data produced by simulated rift basins. The method mapped with good precision a sequence of step faults which are close to each other and present small vertical slips, a feature particularly difficult to detect from gravity data only. The method was also able to map isolated discontinuities with large vertical throw. The method was applied to the gravity data from Reco⁁ncavo basin, Brazil. The results showed close agreement with known geological structures of the basin. It also demonstrated the method’s ability to map a sequence of alternating terraces and structural lows that could not be detected just by inspecting the gravity anomaly. To demostrate the method’s flexibility in incorporating any a priori knowledge about the density contrast variation, it was applied to the Bouguer anomaly over the San Jacinto Graben, California. Two different exponential laws for the decrease of density contrast with depth were used, leading to estimated maximum depths between 2.2 and 2.4 km.


Geofizika ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-261
Author(s):  
Fan Luo ◽  
Xin Tao ◽  
Guangming Fu ◽  
Chong Zhang ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
...  

Satellite gravity data are widely used in the field of geophysics to study deep structures at the regional and global scales. These data comprise free-air gravity anomaly data, which usually need to be corrected to a Bouguer gravity anomaly for practical application. Bouguer reduction approaches can be divided into two methods based on the coordinate system: the spherical coordinates method (SBG) and the Cartesian coordinates method; the latter is further divided into the CEBG and CBG methods, which do and do not include the Earth’s curvature correction. In this paper, free-air gravity anomaly data from the eastern Tibetan Plateau and its adjacent areas were used as the basic data to compare the CBG, CEBG, and SBG Bouguer gravity correction methods. The comparison of these three Bouguer gravity correction methods shows that the effect of the Earth’s curvature on the gravitational effect increases with increasing elevation in the study area. We want to understand the inversion accuracy for the data obtained by different Bouguer gravity reduction approaches. The depth distributions of the Moho were obtained by the interface inversion of the Bouguer gravity anomalies obtained by the CBG, CEBG, and SBG, and active seismic profiles were used as references for comparison and evaluation. The results show that the depths of the Moho obtained by the SBG inversion are more consistent with the measured seismic profile depths. Therefore, the SBG method is recommended as the most realistic approach in the process of global or regional research employing gravity data.


The Afar triangle is bordered, to the west, by a seismic belt running along and on top of the escarpment. Seventy-five percent of the seismic energy of the area is released along this belt. The epicentre distribution along the western escarpment coincides either with major north-south marginal tectonic features or with cross-rift faulting. A second epicentre lineation runs at N 15° E through central Afar. To the south-east, in the region of the Gulf of Tadjura, epicentre locations offer no distinct lineation. The sum of the free-air gravity anomalies over Afar is almost zero; Bouguer values are generally negative and strictly proportional to elevation. Absolute Bouguer positive values are found only over volcanic centres and along the northeastern coast; their maximum does not compare with the positive values found over the nearby Red Sea trough. Evidence based on attenuation and dispersion of seismic surface waves and on gravity profiles suggests a continental crustal structure of relatively ‘standard’ thickness under the Afar triangle.


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