Processing gravity data in the territory of Andalusia

This article focuses on the study of gravity data in Andalusia to analyze its behavior in this territory. Four zones that cover the greatest part of the region are selected, to obtain information as general as possible. Initially, an iterative method using least‐squares prediction to detect gross errors in gravity data is considered. A comparison of the difference between the observed and the predicted values with a critical limit is used to find outliers. A statistical analysis is carried out to check the effect of different reductions on the observed gravity anomalies. Also, empirical covariance functions are computed from original free‐air gravity anomalies, from those reduced with the OSU9/A geopotential model, and from the trend‐reduced free‐air anomalies. The results show that there is different behavior of gravity anomalies corresponding to different topographic structures.

Keywords:

• Earth's gravity field
• empirical covariance function
• geopotential model
• gravity anomaly
• least‐square prediction
• linear regression