Examination of consistency of marine gravity with land gravity in and around the Japanese Islands using a helicopter-borne gravimeter

Abstract

This paper reports a finding that marine gravity data around the Japanese Islands are inconsistent with nearby land gravity data. The comparison between land and marine gravity was made possible by the gravity measurements from the air using a helicopter-borne gravimeter (SEGAWA Model) developed by the present authors. The ground/sea truth gravity anomaly can be checked against the gravity from the air, though it is not free air gravity anomaly but gravity disturbance. The newly-developed airborne gravimeter first manufactured in 1998 shows a good performance with a 1-2 mgal average repeatability of measurement under a 90-knot flight speed. Thus we have found disagreements between ground truth and sea truth gravity anomalies on the basis of airborne gravity data in the areas in Japan where we have so far made measurements. Among them we will report the case in the area from Saitama and Ibaraki offshore to the Kashima-Nada Sea, Japan. Our conclusion about this area is that the past marine gravity data obtained by surface ship gravimeters involve systematic errors of more than 10 mgals. This kind of inconsistency between marine and land gravity is expected to be found in a number of other areas around the Japanese Islands.

Development and demonstration of a gravity gradiometer onboard an autonomous underwater vehicle for detecting massive subseafloor deposits

“…Land-based gravity surveys can be performed with precision and high resolution (1 Â 10 À 8 m/ s 2 to 10 Â 10 À 8 m/s 2 ) using relative and absolute gravimeters (Jousset et al, 1995;Niebauer et al, 1995); however, this is not the case for ocean-based gravity surveys. Airborne and ocean surface gravimetry have low resolution of 1 Â 10 À 5 m/s 2 to 10 Â 10 À 5 m/s 2 because of platform vibrations and apparent gravity effects (Eötvös effect), which depend on velocity and position (Childers et al, 1999;Segawa et al, 2005). Ocean bottom measurements can improve the resolution by approximately 10 À 7 m/s 2 (Zumberge et al, 2008;Fujimoto et al, 2009); however, multiple measurements are required to survey large areas.…”