GOCE data may improve the understanding and modeling of the Earth’s interior and its dynamic processes, contributing to gain new insights into the geodynamics associated with the lithosphere, mantle composition and rheology, uplift and subduction processes. However, to achieve this challenging target, GOCE should be used in combination with additional data sources: e.g. magnetic, gravity and seismology in situ, airborne and satellite data sets.

The overall objective of the study is to combine GOCE gravity gradients with heterogeneous other satellite gravity information to arrive at a combined set of gravity gradients complementing (near)-surface data sets spanning all together scales from global down to 5 km useful for various geophysical applications and demonstrate their utility to complement additional data sources (e.g., magnetic, seismic) to enhance geophysical modelling and exploration.

The GOCE gravity gradient data sets and regional gravity fields will be used for the North East Atlantic Margin for modeling of the lithosphere and upper mantle. In addition, the gravity data sets will be used for the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula (Rub al Khali) to improve modeling for exploration geophysical purposes. The North East Atlantic Margin is a well studied area and the knowledge acquired for this region will be translated to the frontier Rub al Khali area.

Funding: ESA

Period: 04/2011 - 03/2013

Project partners: NGU (Norway) and TNO (Netherlands)

Responsible persons at DGFI: Johannes Bouman, Christoph Haberkorn, Verena Lieb

Selected publications