Detailed information on the gravitational effect of the Earth's topographic and isostatic masses can be calculated by gravity forward modeling. Within this book, the tesseroid-based Rock-Water-Ice (RWI) approach is developed, which allows a rigorous separate modeling of the Earth's rock, water, and ice masses with variable density values. Besides a discussion and evaluation of the RWI approach, applications in the context of the GOCE satellite mission and height system unification are presented.

Detailed information on the gravitational effect of the Earth's topographic and isostatic masses can be calculated by gravity forward modeling. Within this book, the tesseroid-based Rock-Water-Ice (RWI) approach is developed, which allows a rigorous separate modeling of the Earth's rock, water, and ice masses with variable density values. Besides a discussion and evaluation of the RWI approach, applications in the context of the GOCE satellite mission and height system unification are presented. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This book will be based on the material of the lecture noties in several International Schools for the Determination and Use of the Geoid, organized by the International Geoid Serivice of the International Association of Geodesy. It consolidates, unifies, and streamlines this material in a unique way not covereed by the few other books that exist on this subjext. More specifically, the book presents (for the first time in a single volume) the theory and methodology of the most common technique used for precise determination of the geoid, including the computation of the marine geoid from satellite altimetry data. These are illustrated by specific examples and actual computations of local geoids. In addition, the book provides the fundamentals of estimating orthometric heights without spirit levelling, by properly combining a geoid with heights from GPS. Besides the geodectic and geophysical uses, this last application has made geoid computation methods very popular in recent years because the entire GPS and GIS user communities are interested in estimating geoid undulations in order to convert GPS heights to physically meaningful orthometric heights (elevations above mean sea level). The overall purpose of the book is, therefore, to provide the user community (academics, graduate students, geophysicists, engineers, oceanographers, GIS and GPS users, researchers) with a self-contained textbook, which will supply them with the complete roadmap of estimating geoid undulations, from the theoretical definitions and formulas to the available numerical methods and their implementation and the test in practice.

Gravity interpretation involves inversion of data into models, but it is more. Gravity interpretation is used in a “holistic” sense going beyond “inversion”. Inversion is like optimization within certain a priori assumptions, i.e., all anticipated models lie in a limited domain of the a priori errors. No source should exist outside the anticipated model volume, but that is never literally true. Interpretation goes beyond by taking “outside” possibilities into account in the widest sense. Any neglected possibility carries the danger of seriously affecting the interpretation. Gravity interpretation pertains to wider questions such as the shape of the Earth, the nature of the continental and oceanic crust, isostasy, forces and stresses, geol- ical structure, nding useful resources, climate change, etc. Interpretation is often used synonymously with modelling and inversion of observations toward models. Interpretation places the inversion results into the wider geological or economic context and into the framework of science and humanity. Models play a central role in science. They are images of phenomena of the physical world, for example, scale images or metaphors, enabling the human mind to describe observations and re- tionships by abstract mathematical means. Models served orientation and survival in a complex, partly invisible physical and social environment.

This self-contained monograph gives a thorough introduction to the theory of gravity which is used as the basis for developing applications in exploration and geodesy. In addition, a survey of gravity instrumentation is given, with emphasis on the theory of underlying these instruments. The book finishes with an exposition of forward modeling and inverston, again emphasizing fundamental principles. *Surveys gravity instrumentation with emphasis on the theory of why certain instrumentation is used *Presents thorough developments of the theory of gravity to aid in creating applications in exploration and geodesy *Emphasizes the fundamental principles of forward modeling and inversion in the gravitational method