The Earth’s Gravity Field Role in Geodesy and Large-Scale Geophysics

• The Earth gravity field is a signature of the Earth’s mass heterogeneities and structures and applied in Geodesy and Geophysics for different purposes. One of the main goals of Geodesy is to determine the physical shape of the Earth, geoid, as a reference for heights, but Geophysics aims to understand the Earth’s interior. In this chapter, the general principles of geoid determination using the well-known methods of Remove-Compute-Restore, Stokes-Helmert and least-squares modification of Stokes’ formula with additive corrections are shortly discussed. Later, some Geophysical applications like modelling the Mohorovičić discontinuity and density contrast between crust and uppermantle, elastic thickness, ocean depth, sediment and ice thicknesses, sub-lithospheric and lithospheric stress, Earthquakes and epicentres, post-glacial rebound, groundwater storage are discussed. The goal of this chapter is to briefly present the roll of gravity in these subjects.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geofysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geophysics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

bathymetry

earthquake

geoid height

groundwater

ice thickness

Moho discontinuity

post-glacial rebound

post-glacial rebound

stress

sea level change

viscosity

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)