Spatial variability of tidal gravity anomalies and its correlation with the effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere

Abstract

Associations of the Earth tidal gravity response to physical properties of the lithosphere have been attempted at least for the last four decades. Although experimental data suggest this association, rigorous models have not yet been proposed. In this work, statistical tests are performed on the available World Gravity Earth Tides data set. Autocorrelation analysis shows that the M2 tidal gravity anomalies (TGAs) are significantly correlated up to a distance of about 500 km, with an approximately exponential correlation decay. The analysis of the latitudinal dependence of the anomalies shows that the anomaly variance, estimated inside of different latitude bands, follows a cos 4 ϕ curve within the ±45° latitude interval and defines the noise level for the M2 gravity anomaly data set. The regression analysis between M2 TGA and the lithosphere effective elastic thickness (EET) estimates shows that these quantities are significantly correlated, with a correlation coefficient of −0.82. The wide range of TGA and EET values, combined with a good global distribution of the data used in the regression analysis, makes the regression equation suitable to be used as a predictor for EET values in areas where M2 TGA data exist and meet the required quality criteria.