Airborne Gravity Tests In The Italian Area

Airborne gravimetry is a valuable method for measuring gravity over large un-surveyed areas. This technology has been widely applied in Canada, Antarctica and Greenland to map the gravity field of these regions. In 2005, two tests in the Italian area have been performed by ENI in co-operation with the Politecnico di Milano and the Danish National Survey and Cadastre (KMS). To the knowledge of the authors, these are the first experiments of this kind in Italy and have been performed over the Ionian coasts of Calabria and the Maiella mountain. The Calabria test filed is characterized by strong gravity variations due to the geophysical and topographic structure of the area. Also, the ground gravity coverage is quite dense. It was thus possible to compare airborne gravity with on ground observed values in order to check for the precision of airborne gravimetry. The data smoothing process and the collocation approach used in the computations are discussed in details and the results of the comparisons with ground observed gravity are presented. The second campaign was performed in an un-surveyed area centered on the Maiella mountain, thus filling the data gap of this zone. Comparisons with existing on ground data were carried out also in this case.