Abstract
The first North American Comparison of absolute gravimeters (NACAG-2010) was hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at its newly renovated Table Mountain Geophysical Observatory (TMGO) north of Boulder, Colorado, in October 2010. NACAG-2010 and the renovation of TMGO are part of NGS’s GRAV-D project (Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum). Nine absolute gravimeters from three countries participated in the comparison. Before the comparison, the gravimeter operators agreed to a protocol describing the strategy to measure, calculate, and present the results. Nine sites were used to measure the free-fall acceleration of g. Each gravimeter measured the value of g at a subset of three of the sites, for a total set of 27 g-values for the comparison. The absolute gravimeters agree with one another with a standard deviation of 1.6 μGal (1 Gal ≡ 1 cm s −2). The minimum and maximum offsets are −2.8 and 2.7 μGal. This is an excellent agreement and can be attributed to multiple factors, including gravimeters that were in good working order, good operators, a quiet observatory, and a short duration time for the experiment. These results can be used to standardize gravity surveys internationally.
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Schmerge, D., Francis, O., Henton, J. et al. Results of the first North American comparison of absolute gravimeters, NACAG-2010. J Geod 86, 591–596 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-011-0539-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-011-0539-y