THE POLYTECHNIC

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

MINING ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT
Geophysics – GPH 221

Prepared By
Emmanuel Chinkaka
echinkaka@must.ac.mw
+265997559996
 Gravity
⚫ The Earth has its own gravity field.

⚫ The strength of the gravity field is dependent

on local variations in density of the Earth
materials.
⚫ As the Earth is made from different materials
with varying densities, the gravity field around
the Earth varies from place to place.
 Gravity

⚫ By studying anomalies in the gravity field, we

can derive information about the different
materials in the subsurface.
 Gravity
⚫ A force that attracts bodies of matter towards
each other.
⚫ The strength of this force is dependent on the
mass of each body and the distance between
the bodies.
⚫ The larger the masses of the bodies, the larger
the gravitational force.
⚫ The larger the distance between the bodies, the
weaker the gravitational force.
 Theory Gravity
⚫ Gravitational attraction
between two objects:

⚫ F (N) is the force acting between the two

objects, along a straight line
⚫ M is mass (in kg) of object 1 and object 2
⚫ r is the distance (in m) between the two objects
⚫ G is the gravitational constant (6.673x10-11 N-
m2/kg2)
⚫ As the Earth has a constant mass, it is convenient
to rewrite the formula such that the
gravitational force of an object can be derived
directly.

⚫ This is done by dividing by the mass of the

object M1
⚫ g is called the gravitational force and represents
the acceleration of a freely falling object.
⚫ The value of g is calculated by inserting the mass
and radius of the Earth:

⚫ The magnitude of g varies over the Earth but is

approximately 9.8 m/s-2
 Mass

⚫ So from the previous slide, it follows that:

⚫ M is the mass of an object

⚫ Mass = the amount of matter in an object.
 Mass

⚫ The force of gravity is dependent on the

amount of mass a body has.

⚫ That means that the gravity on the Earth is

greater than the gravity on the Moon, since the
Earth has much more matter or mass than the
Moon.
 MASS VERSUS WEIGHT

⚫ The difference between mass and weight

sometimes causes confusion, especially when
dealing with units of measurement.
⚫ In the metric system, the unit of mass is the
gram.
⚫ To get the weight of an object in the metric
system, you multiply the mass in kilograms by
the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s2), resulting
in the units of Newton.
 REPRESENTATION OF GRAVITY

⚫ Gravity acts along a straight line between two

objects.
⚫ Gravity can therefore be represented as a
vector, which has both a magnitude and a
direction
⚫ To describe local deviations in the gravity field,
we need to describe the difference in magnitude
and direction
⚫ There are two ways to do this:

1. Representation of the gravity field with

vectors,
2. Indirect representation of vectors as directional
derivatives the gravity is then described as
a ‘potential’
 VECTOR REPRESENTATION

⚫ Vector of object a is represented as follows:

 POTENTIAL
⚫ An indirect way to represent gravity is through
potential.
⚫ Gravitational potential at a certain location =
the energy per unit mass that is gained when an
object moves from a starting position to that
location.
⚫ The concept of potentials is also known from
other fields than gravity, e.g., electric potentials,
magnetic potentials, heat flow potentials.
POTENTIAL
 POTENTIAL
⚫ Potential energy = the work required to move
an object to a height above a reference height =
mass x gravitational force x height
 GRAVITY VARIATIONS
⚫ In gravity studies, we measure variations in
gravitational acceleration, g (the force or
acceleration on an object caused by gravity).
⚫ The variations in the gravitational acceleration
are caused by differences in density in the
subsurface.
⚫ Material with a high density causes a stronger
gravitational acceleration than material with a
lower density.
⚫ The variation in Earth material densities is the principle
behind geological exploration for mineral deposits and
ore bodies.

⚫ Consider a simple geologic example of an ore body

buried in soil. We would expect the density of the ore
body, d2, to be greater than the density of the
surrounding soil, d1
⚫ The density of the material can be thought of as a
number of point masses per unit material.

⚫ Higher density means a higher number of point masses

per unit material.
⚫ In this example a ball is dropped from a ladder over
different materials.
⚫ Gravitational acceleration can be calculated by
measuring the change in speed of the falling ball.

⚫ The acceleration of the ball is proportional to the

number of point masses that are directly below it.
⚫ The number of point masses below the ball varies with
the location at which it is dropped.

⚫ Over the high density material, the gravitational

acceleration is higher than over the low density
material.

A B
 DENSITY VARIATIONS
DENSITIES FOR SOME COMMON EARTH MATERIALS
 WHAT AFFECTS THE DENSITY OF
A MATERIAL?
⚫ Porosity:
Micro scale (pores, microfractures) and macro
scale (fractures, faults).
Whether the pores are connected or closed, will
affect how much water the material can contain
⚫ Mineralogy: Has generally less influence on
density than porosity (e.g. salt)
⚫ Saturation: Depends on amount and type of
pore fluid.
 MAGNITUDE OF
GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALIES

⚫ The Earth produces a gravitational acceleration

of 9.8 m/s2.
⚫ Anomalies produced by different geological
units in the subsurface (e.g., ore bodies) are very
small, falling between 1x10-7 and 1x10-6 m/s2!
⚫ Therefore, gravity measurements focus on
relative variations in density from place to
place, rather than on absolute variations.
GRAVIMETER
 GRAVIMETER

⚫ The vast majority of gravity measurements is

done with a mass on a spring gravimeter
⚫ Over a location with a higher density, the spring
will get longer, and vice versa for locations with
lower density.
⚫ Only relative differences in gravity can be
measured (not the total field).
 GRAVIMETER

M = mass,
g = gravitational acceleration,
K = spring resistance
 FACTORS AFFECTING GRAVITY

⚫ Not only variations in density affect the gravity

readings of a gravimeter.

⚫ As the variations in density are very small with

respect to the main gravity field, other factors
that can give rise to variations in gravitational
acceleration must be considered too.
 FACTORS AFFECTING GRAVITY

⚫ There are two categories of complicating actors

that can cause gravitational anomalies that are
as large or even larger than the expected
geologic signal:
FACTORS AFFECTING GRAVITY