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Gravity Map of Earth

Posted by michael on from the light-reading dept.

dr3vil writes "Interesting results have been published by the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) project, of the various gravity anomolies that exist at various places on Earth. The BBC report gives a good overview. Fascinating for me, a resident of California, to see us apparently sandwiched between a high and a low spot. Maybe that helps aids the tectonic flows around here?"

4 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Practical uses by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Anyone installing a highly precise weight scale uses this data. Also note that the apparent gravity changes from a high level at the poles to a low level at the equator due to the surface rotational speed of the earth.

    I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how much.

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    1. Re:Practical uses by pyr0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually if you knew a little bit of geology and some geography to go with it, you would see that the gravity highs exist around areas of *very* thick crust. In other words, areas of mountain building due to either collision of plates or from volcanism (including the mid-ocean ridges).

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  2. GPS, GRACE and Gravity Question by mrthoughtful · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Grace uses GPS for it's findings.
    GPS receivers use a gravity map to aid in their calculations.
    Does this mean that Grace can improve it's GPS signals, and iteratively improve upon it's measurements?

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  3. Re:Seems to me ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    yes, but you must remember that both ridge processes (e.g. "ridge push") and subduction processes (e.g. "slab pull") are the crustal manifestations of convective processes in the mantle.