Definition
In geophysics gravity anomalies are generally defined as the difference between observed gravity field and the field of a reference model. Depending on the reference gravity model, two different types of anomaly variations are considered: gravity anomalies and gravity disturbances. The geodetic gravity anomaly is defined as the difference between gravity on the geoid and normal gravity on the reference ellipsoid (Blakely 1995; Heiskanen and Moritz 1967). On the other hand, the gravity disturbance is defined as the difference of the fields at the same point on the reference ellipsoid. It has been demonstrated that the gravity disturbances are more appropriate for geophysical purposes (e.g., Hackney and Featherstone 2003). In any case, it is necessary to take into account this difference in the interpretation. For more details see “Gravity, Data to Anomalies.” Here we use the general term “anomalies” for both types as traditionally accepted in geophysics.
The observed gravity...
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Kaban, M.K. (2019). Gravity Anomalies, Interpretation. In: Gupta, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10475-7_88-1
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