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Gravity and the Geoid XII

Posted by Mister Gepdesist on Aug 28, 2007 7:38 pm

Before proceeding with a discussion of gravity anomalies I need to define the units to be used for gravity anomalies.
The units used previously for reference gravity was cm/sec^2. But, while the Earth's gravity field is nearly 1000
cm/sec^2, gravity is always less than 1 cm/sec^2, and some other unit is needed for gravity anomalies. The unit
normally used in expressing gravity anomalies is the milligal, abbreviated as mgal, where 1 mgal = .001 cm/sec^2
(gal coming from Galileo).Notice that gravity is expressed in acceleration units, but is spoken of as a force. But
remember that force equals mass times acceleration, so gravity can be thought of as the amount of force exerted on
a unit mass by the gravity field.In a previous post I discussed using gravity measurements at a point, P, on the
Earth's surface to estimate modified gravity at a point, Q, on the geoid. The three steps were: (1) subtract from gravity
at P the effect of removing all mass above the geoid, (2) compute the gravity effect of moving vertically from P to Q,
and (3) add back to the gravity at Q the effect of returning the mass removed in step (1) as a thin layer just below the
geoid.We will call the value of gravity at Q after performing the first two steps Gq1 and the value of gravity at Q after
performing all three steps Gq2. Then the two types of gravity anomalies used by NGS for point gravity anomalies
when performing geoid computations are known as Complete Bouguer Anomalies and Faye Anomalies, also referred
to as Terrain Corrected Free Air Anomalies.The Complete Bouguer Anomaly is given bydGcb=(Gq1-Gr)=(Go-
BC+TC+FAC)-GrThe Faye Anomaly is given bydGtcf=(Gq2-Gr)=(Go+TC+FAC)-GrwhereGq1 and Gq2 are as defined
aboveGr is the GRS80 value at point R on the reference geoidGo is the observed gravity at PFAC is the free air
correctionBC is the Bouguer correctionTC is the terrain correctionFAC,BC, and TC will be defined in detail in the next
posts.Note that the two corrections BC and TC together account for step (1) above, while FAC accounts for step (2).
Step (3) is accounted for by adding back in BC.Geoid computation requires more dense Faye anomalies in the
immediate vicinity of points where geoid heights are being computed than there are observed gravity points. This
requires using interpolation to estimate Faye anomalies at intermediate points between observation points. This
interpolation is best done using Complete Bouguer Anomalies, together with Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), rather
than Faye Anomalies, to interpolate and then convert to Faye Anomalies. Although not used directly by geodesists in
geoid computation two other types of gravity anomalies that are commonly found in gravity literature. These are:Free
Air Anomaly = dGfa=(Go+FAC)-GrSimple Bouguer Anomaly = dGb=(Go-BC+FAC)-GrIn the next posts we will
discuss in detail the corrections.