A wavelet transformation approach for multi-source gravity fusion: Applications and uncertainty tests

• Fusion gravity maps are more sensitive to wavelet type than decomposition level.
• Fusion map has more accurate short-wavelength anomalies along ship tracks than ABGAM.
• Fusion map has more accurate long-wavelength anomalies between ship tracks than SGAM.

Gravity anomalies detected by different measurement platforms have different characteristics and advantages. There are different kinds of gravity data fusion methods for generating single gravity anomaly map with a rich and accurate spectral content. Former studies using wavelet based gravity fusion method which is a newly developed approach did not pay more attention to the fusion uncertainties. In this paper, we firstly introduce the wavelet based gravity fusion method, and then apply this method to one synthetic model and also to the northern margin of the South China Sea. Wavelet type and the decomposition level are two input parameters for this fusion method, and the uncertainty tests show that fusion results are more sensitive to wavelet type than the decomposition level. The optimal application result of the fusion methodology on the synthetic model is closer to the true anomaly field than either of the simulated shipborne anomaly and altimetry-based anomaly grid. The best fusion result on the northern margin of the South China Sea is based on the ‘rbio1.3’ wavelet and four-level decomposition. The fusion result contains more accurate short-wavelength anomalies than the altimetry-based gravity anomalies along ship tracks, and it also has more accurate long wavelength characteristics than the shipborne gravity anomalies between ship tracks. The real application case shows that the fusion result has better correspondences to the seafloor topography variations and sub-surface structures than each of the two input gravity anomaly maps (shipborne based gravity anomaly map and altimetry based gravity anomaly map). Therefore, it is possible to map and detect more precise seafloor topography and geologic structures by the new gravity anomaly map.