Friday, March 1, 2019

NGS Conducts Airborne Gravity Surveys Over Pacific Islands

The Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum (GRAV-D) project is conducting airborne gravity surveys over American Samoa and Hawaii. GRAV-D is an ongoing initiative to redefine the nationwide vertical datum by 2022. Accurate heights are critical to numerous scientific endeavors but are particularly important for protecting low-lying coastal ecosystems. GRAV-D is driven by the fundamental relationship between Earth's gravity field and height. The project's goal is to model and monitor Earth's geoid (a surface of the gravity field, approximating global mean sea level) to serve as a reference surface to define precise surface elevations for all locations in the U.S. and its territories.

For more information, contact: Jeffery Johnson