by K.M. Marks, D.C. McAdoo, and W.H.F. Smith
Available from NGDC, Data Announcement 93-MGG-05
This color-shaded gravity poster of the Circum-Antarctic region between 30S and 72S reveals details of seafloor relief not seen before in either gravity images or ship bathymetry. Seafloor topography beneath the Southern Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Scotia and Tasman Seas and the smaller seas around Antarctica, is detailed in this marine gravity field. It is possible to "see" the seafloor in this image bcause gravity and topography are highly correlated in the 20-200 km waveband. The complex history of seafloor spreading that formed these ocean basins is recorded in the tectonic fabric of the ocean floor. The gravity field was computed from sea-surface height measurements collected by the U.S. Navy Geosat altimeter between March, 1985, and January, 1990. The high density GEOSAT Geodetic Mission (GM) data that lie south of 30 S were declassified by the Navy in May of 1992. These GM data contribute most of the fine-scale gravity information.
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