Precision Gravity Surveys

Gravity Surveys are used for many applications, including gold, base metal and diamond exploration.  For geotechnical applications it can be used to detect buried bedrock escarpments, for example.  

ClearView’s Trimble R12i GPS and Scintrex CG6 are industry state-of-the-art for taking measurements with sub-centimetre vertical accuracy and high repeatability.

Notice in the following image, an extension bar was added to an older R10 RTK GPS staff to allow better access in dense bushes. This is typically not necessary with the newer Trimble R12i.  The R12i inertial feature allows for fast highly accurate readings without needing to level the sensor.

Height-of-instrument reading                                        Recording RTK-GPS elevation reading

The following image is of the CG6 setup on the base station.  The Trimble R12i rover GPS is sitting on the skidoo, and the R12i base station GPS is running on the tripod in the background.

Gravity Base Station and RTK-GPS Base station (background)

Gravity Surveys are used for many applications, including gold, base metal and diamond exploration.  For geotechnical applications it can be used to detect buried bedrock escarpments, for example.  

ClearView’s Trimble R12i GPS and Scintrex CG6 are industry state-of-the-art for taking measurements with sub-centimetre vertical accuracy and high repeatability.

Notice in the following image, an extension bar was added to an older R10 RTK GPS staff to allow better access in dense bushes. This is typically not necessary with the newer Trimble R12i.  The R12i inertial feature allows for fast highly accurate readings without needing to level the sensor.

The following image is of the CG6 setup on the base station.  The Trimble R12i rover GPS is sitting on the skidoo, and the R12i base station GPS is running on the tripod in the background.

The 35W repeater is positioned on high ground allowing property-wide measurements even in rough terrain.  This allows for a single base station position and reduces the chance of error when needing to ‘leap-frog’ the base station across the survey area.

GPS base station repeater radio (35W)

The TSC7 datalogger runs Windows 10 and works in harsh weather environments.  Bluetooth is used to communicate with the R12 receivers.

Set-up for CG6 gravity reading

Bouguer Gravity is calculated using Earth Tide corrections, Free Air Corrections, Bouguer corrections and Latitude corrections.  These corrected data can then be inversion modeled using UBC inversion facility software, for example.  Depending on the project, results can be compared to magnetics and other data to help with the interpretation of results.