Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183

The first high-resolution gravimetric geoid for Argentina: GAR

V. Corchete a,∗ , M.C. Pacino b
a Higher Polytechnic School, University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain
b Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingenierı́a y Agrimensura, University of Rosario, Rosario, Argentina
Received 27 June 2006; received in revised form 22 January 2007; accepted 31 January 2007

Abstract
This paper describes the new geoid model for Argentina. As only very few geoid solutions are published for South America, any
new geoid model could be considered very important. As expected the obtained geoid solution have better accuracy and reliability,
than the global EIGEN-GL04C model, which was derived recently with the most advanced techniques and the best database available
up to 2006. The computation method was the Stokes integral in convolution form, which is proved as an efficient tool to reach
the expected objective. The terrain corrections have been computed from a digital terrain model based on the SRTM (Shuttler
Radar Topography Mission) 90M database. These corrections were used to obtain the residual anomalies from the gridded gravity
anomalies. The indirect effect has been also taken into account. The new geoid model is obtained on a regular 1.5 × 1.5 grid in the
GRS80 reference system, covering Argentina and the surrounding area, from −56◦ to −21◦ of latitude and from −75◦ to −53◦ of
longitude. This gravimetric geoid and the EIGEN-GL04C model are compared to geoid undulations derived at 393 GPS/levelling
points, located at the study area. As it is expected, the new geoid shows a better fit at the 393 validation points than the global geoid
model. The new gravimetric geoid solution could be very important for engineering purposes to provide an improved reference
surface may be used in connection with GPS measurements and altimetric observations, as well as for geophysical purposes.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Gravity; Geoid; FFT; GPS/levelling; Argentina; South America

1. Introduction
Due to the lack of reliable gravity data there are
only few studies discussing and treating the detailed
geoid over Argentina and the surrounding area. However,
the new gravity satellite missions provide new global
solutions that allow modelling the long and medium
wavelengths of the Earth’s gravity field. Such models as
the EIGEN-GL04C solution represents a major advance
in the geodesy, as they are incorporating the best quality
data available for the whole Earth. However as Corchete
∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +34 950 015477.
E-mail address: corchete@ual.es (V. Corchete).
et al. (2006) have shown, the global geoid models can
fail in regions with high mountains, where a gravimet-
ric geoid based on local data can be more reliable. Our
target was to compute an improved gravimetric covering
Argentina. This new geoid solution completely covers
Argentina, extends from −56◦ to −21◦ of latitude and
from −75◦ to −53◦ of longitude (extended to 35◦ × 22◦ ).
The new geoid model is available in the GRS80 refer-
ence system, on a 1401 × 881 regular grid with a mesh
size of 1.5 × 1.5 . This solution will be a first step in the
computation of a gravimetric geoid for the South Ameri-
can continent, if more gravity data were available. At the
computation we used the Stokes integral in convolution
form (Haagmans et al., 1993). The required terrain cor-
rections were also applied to obtain the residual gravity

0031-9201/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pepi.2007.01.012
178 V. Corchete, M.C. Pacino / Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183
anomalies. The corresponding indirect effect was also
taken into account (Schwarz et al., 1990; Sideris, 1990).
The estimated Geoid of ARgentina (GAR), was com-
pared to the EIGEN-GL04C geoid model to demostrate
the improvement in precision and reliability.
2. Data set
In order to get an accurate and detailed gravimetric
geoid solution complete data sets of: (1) free-air gravity
anomalies; (2) a geopotential model; (3) a high precision
DTM; (4) GPS/levelling data for geoid testing are nec-
essary. The detailed description of data sets used for the
computation of the GAR geoid is given below.
2.1. Land and marine gravity data bank
This data are provided by the National Geophysical
Data Center (NGDC), the Bureau Gravimetrique Inter-
national (BGI) and the Gravity databank of Argentina.
NGDC contributed a data set consisting of 109,145
points (23,945 terrestrial and 85,200 sea-gravity points),
the BGI data set in the study area has 78,447 points
(15,282 terrestrial and 63,165 sea-gravity points) and the
Argentina database provides 1248,98 terrestrial points.
The accuracy of the BGI and NGDC data ranges from
0.1 to 0.2 mgal.
The Argentina database is formed of data points
acquired from different sources. Gravity surveys have
been carried out in Argentina over the last century
by Instituto Geográfico Militar (IGM), national and
international academic institutions and oil and mining
companies. In 2002 IGM finished the tasks related to the
measurements of the national levelling network, coin-
cident with the first order national gravity network. It
consists of 370 levelling lines with 16,320 benchmarks,
and 225 network nodes. Almost each benchmark in the
network have geocentric coordinates. Their accuracy
however varies from a few centimeters for the most
recent ones determined by GPS, up to some meters in
the case of those coming from topographic maps, a usual
procedure in older days. Most of the gravity values in
the network were originally referred to the old Potsdam
datum but today they have been converted to IGSN71
through the application of a shift of −14.93 mgal to
the measured values. This conversion formula has been
tested on more than 800 points that have been mea-
surements on both systems and give a mean difference
of 0.2 mgal. Apart from the measuring methodology
and instrumentation, the overall accuracy for the grav-
ity measurements is better than 0.5 mgal. At the same
time, academic and research institutions performed large
amount of gravity measurements. Most of this infor-
mation has been added to the database, after a careful
verification process.
The whole dataset consists of 312,490 points of
free-air gravity anomalies (164,125 points in land and
148,365 points at the sea). This dataset has been checked
to delete the repeated points letting 231,808 points.
All the data have been converted into the GRS80 ref-
erence system, where the atmospheric correction has
been applied (Wichiencharoen, 1982; Kuroishi, 1995).
In Fig. 1a the final gravity data distribution for the study
area (231,808 points) is shown.
2.2. Geopotential model
The EIGEN-GL04C model (Förste et al., 2006)
is an upgrade of the EIGEN-CG03C model (Förste
et al., 2005). This model is a combination of the
GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment)
and LAGEOS (LAser GEOdynamics Satellite) mission
solution adding a 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ gravimetry and altimetry
surface data. The surface data are identical to EIGEN-
CG03C set except of the geoid undulations over the
oceans. The EIGEN-GL04C geopotential model repre-
sents a major advance in the modelling of the Earth’s
gravity and geoid. Therefore this geopotential model
must be considered for the computation of the long wave
contribution to the geoid and the gravity anomaly, when
we wish to obtain a high-precision geoid in the study
area.
2.3. Digital terrain model (DTM)
Any gravimetric geoid computation based on the
Stokes’s integral must use anomalies that have been
reduced to the geoid, usually by means of the Helmert’s
second method of condensation (Heiskanen and Moritz,
1967). This involves the computation of the terrain cor-
rection and the indirect effect on the geoid, which are
computed from a DTM. A DTM is also necessary to
compute the RTM reduction for the point anomalies in
order to obtain smooth gravity anomalies, which are
more easily gridded. At the present study a gridded
topography with a mesh size of 3 × 3 (approximately
90 m × 90 m) from SRTM 90M was applied. The Shut-
tle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation data
is the most complete high-resolution digital topographic
database of Earth. Unfortunately, bathymetry with the
same resolution as the topography is not available. This is
a problem that causes lost of precision in the RTM marine
correction, because it introduces errors in the smoothing
of the gravity anomalies (Corchete et al., 2005). To min-
 V. Corchete, M.C. Pacino / Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183
Fig. 1. (a) Geographical distribution of the gravity data over the study area (231,808 free-air gravity anomalies). (b) Geographical distribution of
the 393 GPS/levelling points used as control data set (triangles).
imize this problem the data window was selected so to
include marine data as minor as possible. Thus, the study
area was fitted to the coastline of South America as much
as possible (Fig. 1b). The bathymetry data has been grid-
ded from the bathymetry data available from ETOPO2
onto a grid with the same 3 × 3 mesh size as the SRTM
90M grid. The gridding has been done using the Krig-
ing method with the same software package as for the
interpolation of the gravity data. Finally, the bathymetry
grid was added to the gridded topography from SRTM
90M, supplied a new elevation model for the whole study
region with a 3 × 3 spacing.
2.4. GPS/levelling points used as a control data set
A total of 393 GPS/levelling points, shown in Fig. 1b,
were used for the evaluation and validation of the gravi-
metric geoid. The validation data set was created by the
staff of the IGM and several cadastral agencies. The
levelling network of Argentina was originally referred
to the mean sea level by the tide gauge located at Mar
del Plata city. In this sense, the orthometric height must
be considered as referred to the mean sea level. How-
ever, no geopotential corrections were applied to the
levelling measurements (Perdomo et al., 1999). GPS
data were measured by several institutions and referred
to different geodetic frame. For this study, all the data
was re-aligned to ITRF94. This adjustment introduced
very small corrections to the original coordinates. The
179
estimated accuracy of the geoidal heights after transfor-
mations is about 3–7 cm.
3. Methodology and processing
In this study, the computation method described in
detail by Corchete et al. (2005) for the calculation of
a gravimetric geoid was followed. Here only a brief
review of the principal concepts of this methodology is
presented.
3.1. Gravity data gridding
Since the gravity data set consists of point data
anomalies distributed randomly, an interpolation pro-
cess should be applied to obtain a regular data grid.
Before the interpolation, it is very suitable to remove
the short-wavelength effects that appear in the grav-
ity anomaly field, associated to the short-wavelength
topography. This correction, called RTM correction
(Forsberg and Tscherning, 1997), should be applied
to obtain a smooth gravity anomaly field, more suit-
able for gridding. Usually, this correction is applied
together with a long-wavelength correction obtained
from a global geopotential model as EIGEN-GL04C.
Thus, a set of point anomalies completely smoothed
relative to EIGEN-GL04C and easy to grid could be
obtained.
180 V. Corchete, M.C. Pacino / Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183
These smooth anomalies are determined by the well-
known relationship
pts pts pts
gred = gfree − 2πkρ(h − href )pts + cpts − gGM
where the superscript pts denotes each point randomly
distributed over the study area, gfree is the free-air
gravity anomaly, k the Newton’s gravitational constant,
ρ the density of the topography (2.67 g/cm3 ) for the
RTM correction on land or the density of the topog-
raphy minus seawater density (2.67–1.03 = 1.64 g/cm3 )
for marine RTM, h is the elevation, h denotes the ele-
vation of the reference surface (this reference surface
is obtained by applying of a 2D low-pass filter with a
resolution of 60 , to the elevations field), c is the ter-
rain correction computed for land and marine points, and
gGM is the gravity anomaly computed from the geopo-
tential model EIGEN-GL04C. In Eq. (1), c is computed
by means of a classical integration formula as described
by Torge (1989). For this computation, it has been con-
sidered a density for the topographic masses of 2.67
and 1.03 g/cm3 for seawater. Terrain correction has been
computed to a radius of 0.75◦ (83 km approximately)
from the point considered.
After this smoothing procedure, some erroneous val-
ues could be detected. These erroneous values are
associated to bad gravity data points. To avoid the inclu-
sion of these bad data in the computation process, the
gravity anomalies given by (1) greater than 75 mgal were
removed. Thus, 4224 points from the total data set (con-
sisting of 231,808 points) were removed, letting 227,584
points for the interpolation in a regular grid. This regular
grid has been obtained by using of Kriging-based rou-
tines which are a part of OriginLab software package (©
1991–2003 OriginLab Corporation). The gridded data
are distributed over the study area from −56◦ to −21◦ of
latitude and from −75◦ to −53◦ of longitude (extended
to 35◦ × 22◦ ), in a 1401 × 881 regular grid with a mesh
size of 1.5 × 1.5 and 1,234,281 points.
Finally, RTM must be restored in the gridded anoma-
lies to obtain the true free-air anomalies relative to
EIGEN-GL04C. This RTM effect can be restored by
grid grid
gfree = gred + 2πkρ(h − href )grid − cgrid
where the superscript grid denotes each point of the
regular grid considered (1401 × 881 = 1,234,281 points),
gfree is the free-air gravity anomaly, gred is the gravity
anomaly reduced by (1) and gridded. It should be noted
that 2πkρ(h − href ) and c are computed in the same way
above described, but now over a regular grid of points.
3.2. Geoid computation
The GAR geoid has been computed by the classical
remove-restore technique.
Following this method, the geoid model is obtained
(1)
by the sum of three terms
N = N1 + N2 + N3 (3)
where N1 is the long-wave field contribution, N2 is the
contribution of the indirect effect (obtained from the ele-
vations model) and N3 is the short-wave contribution
obtained from the gravity anomalies over the study area
reduced to the geoid (following the Helmert’s second
method of condensation).
The first term N1 , the global field contribution to the
geoid undulation, can be computed from a spherical har-
monic expansion by Heiskanen and Moritz (1967) and
Corchete et al. (2005). Fig. 2a shows the results obtained
by application of such spherical harmonic expansion,
to the grid points of the study area. The second term
N2 , the indirect effect of Helmert’s second method of
condensation reduction on the geoid, consists of two
terms in planar approximation (Sideris, 1990). This pla-
nar approximation can be easily written in convolution
form (Schwarz et al., 1990) and computed by a FFT pro-
cedure, obtaining the result showed in Fig. 2b. The third
term N3 , the contribution of the residual gravity, can be
obtained by means of the Stokes integral (Heiskanen and
Moritz, 1967) written in convolution form by using 1D
FFT (Haagmans et al., 1993). The result of this integra-
tion procedure is shown in Fig. 2c.
Thus, the gravimetric geoid solution GAR is reached
by the sum of all previously described terms according to
(3). This geoid with a mesh size of 1.5 × 1.5 (extended
35◦ × 22◦ over the study area), is shown in Fig. 2d. The
important indirect effect appears clearly in some con-
tours plotted in Fig. 2d, being the contour lines rugged
in areas with high mountains (in the area of the Andes
Mountains). This new model and a simple FORTRAN
program for PC can be obtained from the internet address
http://airy.ual.es/www/GAR english.htm. The computer
program allows the computation of the geoid height
(using this geoid model) in any point over the study area
shown in Fig. 2d.
(2)
3.3. Geoid validation
The differences between the geoid heights predicted
for the geoids shown in Fig. 2a and d, and the geoid
heights corresponding to the 393 validation points
(shown in Fig. 1b), have been computed. The statistics
of these differences is shown in Table 1. The new geoid
 V. Corchete, M.C. Pacino / Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183 181

Fig. 2. (a) The EIGEN-GL04C geoid model computed for the study area. The contour interval is 5.0 m. (b) The indirect effect on the geoid (plotted
positive). Values above 4 m are shown with black colour (the grey scale is non-linear). (c) Residual geoid undulation. (d) The Geoid of ARgentina
(GAR) obtained as a sum of the terms given by formula (3). The contour interval is 5.0 m.

Fig. 3. (a) Error map obtained for the model EIGEN-GL04C. (b) Error map obtained for the gravimetric geoid GAR. The contour interval is 0.05 m
for both maps.
182 V. Corchete, M.C. Pacino / Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 161 (2007) 177–183
Table 1
Statistics of the differences between the geoid heights predicted by the
geoids shown in Fig. 2a and d, and the geoid heights corresponding to
the 393 validation points (shown in Fig. 1b)
Differences Mean (m) S.D. (m)
GAR-N −0.009 0.207
EIGEN-N −0.257 0.291
N = geoid height obtained by GPS/levelling, EIGEN = EIGEN-GL04C
geoid.
GAR shows an improvement in precision and reliability,
fitting the geoidal heights determined for the 393 valida-
tion points, better than the global geoid. The differences
between the geoid heights predicted by the EIGEN-
GL04C and GAR models (for the 393 validation points)
and the observed values obtained by GPS/levelling, have
been interpolated to make the error maps shown in Fig. 3.
These error maps show the improvement in precision
attained by the GAR model respect to the global model,
in the major part of the study area. Nevertheless, the trend
to increase the error of the GAR model (Fig. 3b), in the
areas with more scarcity of gravity data (Fig. 1a), clearly
indicates that more gravity measurements are necessary
in these areas to get a geoid with a similar high precision
for the whole study area.
4. Conclusions
The computation methods based on the FFT analysis,
have allowed the calculation of a new gravimetric geoid
for Argentina and the surrounding area, which is a major
advance in the modelling of the geoid in South America.
The gravimetric geoid determination has been carried
out by means of the Stokes integral in convolution form.
This method is shown as an efficient method to compute
a high-resolution geoid. Based on the above described
datasets we obtained a geoid available on a regular grid of
1401 × 881 points (1,234,281 points in the GRS80 refer-
ence system), with a mesh size of 1.5 × 1.5 , distributed
over the study area from −56◦ to −21◦ of latitude and
from −75◦ to −53◦ of longitude (extended to 35◦ × 22◦ ).
At the 393 GPS/levelling validation points the new geoid
shows better agreement than the global geoid EIGEN-
GL04C, the standard deviation was dropped from 29.1 to
20.7 cm (see Table 1). We note here that this geoid is only
a first step to obtain a geoid with centimetric precision
for Argentina and the surrounding area. The centime-
ter accuracy can be approached when new gravity data
will be available at some zones with scarce gravity data
coverage. These areas are observable on the error map
plotted in Fig. 3b. In spite of the data gaps our geoid has
better accuracy than any previous geoid solutions in the
South American continent. This new model will allow
orthometric height determination with GPS in the moun-
tains and remote areas, where levelling has many logistic
problems. Furthermore, this new model can be interest-
ing for geophysical purposes as well, because it may
provide a constraint for density distribution and thermal
state of the lithosphere.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the National Geophysi-
cal Data Center (NGDC) and the Bureau Gravimetrique
International (BGI) for providing the gravity data used
in this study. David Dater, Dan Metzger and Allen
Hittelman (U.S. Department of Commerce, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) have com-
piled the NGDC gravity data set. NGDC and the United
States Geological Survey (USGS) have supplied the
elevation data required to compute the necessary ter-
rain corrections, through the databases: ETOPO2 and
SRTM 90M (available by FTP internet protocol). The
authors are also grateful to GETECH, University of
Leeds (U.K.), Instituto Geográfico Militar de Argentina
and several cadastral agencies; for providing the gravity
data and the GPS/levelling data used for validation of
the geoid obtained. The authors wish to thank Dr. Alexis
Cede for help in the translation of the manuscript. The
Dirección General de Investigación, MCT, Spain, Project
BTE2003-00974 (financed with FEDER funds) and The
Agencia Nacional de Promoción Cientı́fica y Técnica
de Argentina (PICT 7.15163); supported this research
partially.
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