Gravity strike angles to study various geological features

The traditional gravity anomalies are not able to describe subsurface density anomalies completely. The gravity aspects provide more detailed information. They are functions of the disturbing static gravitational potential (assumed to be available in the form of Stokes parameters). The gravity strike angles belong to a set of gravity aspects. They are surprisingly informatively rich; they inform about shallowly deposited ground density/ porosity anomalies and existing stresses. The gravity fields of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars are already known “sufficiently well” and thus, the gravity aspects have a chance to be successfully applied to study various geological features. For the Earth, it helped to confirm or discover impact craters, subglacial volcanoes, and lakes in Antarctica and Greenland or paleolakes in the Sahara. We discovered a correlation between the combed strike angles (aligned in one direction) and huge oil/gas deposits like Ghawar (Saudi Arabia) or the Caspian Sea; many other localities were tested later for potential hydrocarbon or groundwater occurrences. The gravity aspects yield a cheap remote sensing tool for testing various causative bodies (target deposits).