Airborne gravity field surveying for oceanography, geology and geodesy — the experiences from AGMASCO

Within the European AGMASCO project (Airborne Geoid Mapping System for Coastal Oceanography), cooperations with user groups from Oceanography, Geology and Geodesy have been arisen. The airplane based gravimetry/altimetry system provides a rapid surveying procedure which is specially employed in not easily available marine and land areas (e.g. coastal/shelf areas, polar regions). In Geodesy, it serves for the improvement and refinement of already existing geoids and of future satellite-only gravity field models. The availability of precise regional geoids allow the monitoring of the dynamic sea surface topography by satellite altimetry. For applications in geology and geotechnics, gravimetry is a pre-surveying method for exploration of energy resources.The AGMASCO products such as gravity anomalies, sea surface heights and regional geoids (Skagerrak/1996, Fram Strait/1997, Azores/1997) will be discussed in this paper. The accuracy corresponds to the state-of-the-art of airborne gravimeuy/altimetry.