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High degree spherical harmonic expansion of gravity data

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Abstract

A spherical harmonic expansion of the gravity field up to degree and order 200 was carried out. Free air anomaly data over Canada (10×10 block averages) with a range of 211.1 mgal were used for testing. A low degree expansion (N=30) produced a map with a range of 63.6 mgal with contour patterns that could hardly be correlated with the original hand contoured map. A high degree expansion (N=200) on the other hand resulted in a map with a range of 199.8 mgal which quite faithfully reproduced the original including its local variations. Test computations verify that by monitoring the RMS values and the range of the expansion it is possible to arrive at an optimum degree of expansion for a given data set. It was also verified by the computations, that, since the computed expansions essentially have a zero value outside the domain of the input, it is possible to combine the results of separate non-overlapping expansions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gravity and Geodynamics Division Earth Physics Branch, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Dezsö Nagy

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  1. Dezsö Nagy
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Nagy, D. High degree spherical harmonic expansion of gravity data. Bull. Geodesique 55, 86–93 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02527036

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02527036

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