The development of a deep-towed gravity meter, and its use in marine geophysical surveys of offshore southern California and an airborne laser altimeter survey of Long Valley, California

Marine Gravity is presently measured on the sea surface and on the sea floor. Surface measurements suffer from a loss of resolution, and seafloor measurements are slow to perform. The TOWDOG was created to operate near the seafloor but have a faster data recovery rate than seafloor measurements. It is a Lacoste and Romberg gravity meter, mounted inside a pressure case, and placed upon a platform which is stable while being towed. The instrument's depth is determined by pressure measurements. Its horizontal position is calculated using a dynamic model of the towing cable.;The first deployment of the instrument was in the San Diego Trough, a sedimentary basin offshore San Diego. Multiple gravity tracks were obtained at a depth of 935 meters. The rms repeatability between coincident tracks is 0.4 mGal. The inter-track gravity signal is coherent for wavelengths greater than 640 meters. A 1-km-wide seafloor depression in the Trough generates a 0.7 mGal gravity anomaly, which is seen in the data when 3 tracks are stacked.;The goal of the San Diego Trough survey was to determine if a significant density contrast exists across the basin's central axial fault. The survey reveals that no discernible contrast exists across the near-surface part of the fault. Two-dimensional gravity modeling constrained by seismic reflection profiles yields a depth to basement of 3.8 to 4.8 km below sea-level. A 3-component model (younger sediment, older, sedimentary rocks, and acoustic basement), best fits the seismic and gravity data.;The laser altimeter survey of Long Valley, California tests the capabilities of an aircraft-mounted laser in monitoring time-varying uplift of a resurgent volcanic dome. The system can profile a lake surface with an r.m.s. repeatability of 3-5 cm, and can detect time-varying height changes of the lake level of 5 cm per day. This should be sufficiently accurate to detect yearly uplift of 4 cm per year, as is occurring at Long Valley. The detection of such signals has not yet been proven, but the error level of the data is sufficiently low to provide encouragement that such a goal will eventually be attained.