The Earth gravity field is a signature of the Earth’s mass heterogeneities and structures and applied in Geodesy and Geophysics for different purposes. One of the main goals of Geodesy is to determine the physical shape of the Earth, geoid, as a reference for heights, but Geophysics aims to understand the Earth’s interior. In this chapter, the general principles of geoid determination using the well-known methods of Remove-Compute-Restore, Stokes-Helmert and least-squares modification of Stokes’ formula with additive corrections are shortly discussed. Later, some Geophysical applications like modelling the Mohorovičić discontinuity and density contrast between crust and uppermantle, elastic thickness, ocean depth, sediment and ice thicknesses, sub-lithospheric and lithospheric stress, Earthquakes and epicentres, post-glacial rebound, groundwater storage are discussed. The goal of this chapter is to briefly present the roll of gravity in these subjects.
The author is thankful to Farzam Fatolazadeh for generating maps of the maximum shear gravity strain and global ground water storage.