Fractal characterization of the South Australian gravity station network

Abstract

The spatial distribution of the South Australian gravity station network (over 65 000 stations) can be approximated by a fractal point set of correlation dimension Dc= 1.4. The fractality is established over more than 2 decades of distance. The fractal nature of the grid is possibly due to the multistage decisions involved in establishing a network; in each step, previously unexplored areas are dissected by geophysical traverses, as in the classical fractal fragmentation process. It is shown that we cannot observe the short‐wavelength components of the gravity field if the dimension of the network is less than two and any attempt to interpolate onto a regular grid could lead to spurious anomalies due to aliasing. Copyright © 1990, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved