• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.537-545
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• 2000

Shipborne gravity data are analyzed to investigate crustal structure under Dok Island and its surrounding seamounts located in border of Ulleung Basin and Oki Bank in the East Sea. Relatively low free-air gravity anomaly compared with the volume of seamounts may be explainable by isostatic compensation. From 1 st to 3rd Dokdo Seamounts, the decrease of free-air and Bouguer gravity anomalies implies the different degree of isostatic compensation, crustal thickness or/and density contrast. 3-D gravity modelling shows that seamounts have the mirror roots for regional Airy isostatic compensation, and from Ulleung Basin to Oki Bank, Moho discontinuity deepens and the density of crust is decreases. The results infer that study area is transitional zone from thin oceanic to thick continental crust. The depth of Moho discontinuity is about 15∼16 km, which may be interpreted as an uplifting of Mantle to shallow depth comparing with other borders of the Ulleung Basin.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.455-463
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• 2002

There have been few geophysical studies on the crustal structure of the continent-ocean zone around the middle eastern part of Korean peninsula, because of the lack of database in both land and ocean. The area for the study on the internal crustal structure using gravity data is bounded by the latitude of 37$^{\circ}$-38"N and longitude of 128$^{\circ}$-132$^{\circ}$E. WCA correction is applied to shipborne gravity data to integrate with gravity anomalies obtained on land. The high frequency components of the shipborne gravity data which are considered as the noise on survey track are effectively removed by means of correlating with satellite gravity data. The corrected shipborne free-air gravity anomaly is integrated with the Bouguer gravity anomaly on land under the same condition. The integrated gravity anomaly is divided into four areas for power spectrum analysis. The depths of Moho discontinuity increases gradually from inland to Ulleung basin. As the result of modeling based on power spectrum analysis, Moho discontinuity depth is about 33-35 km in the continental zone of Korea and 18-28 km at the continental margin. Such structural character is well elucidated in changing gravity data around Ulleung basin. The depths of Moho discontinuity in the southern ocean of Ulleung-island is 16--17 km, which is much lower than in the land. The result of crustal structure modeling in this study is similar to that computed by prior seismic exploration around this area.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.283-291
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• 2004

To find out the locus of the Quinling-Dabie-Sulu continental collision’s boundary and to estimate underground structure of the sedimentray basin in the Yellow Sea, three dimensional density modelling is carrid out by using gravity dataset (Free Air Anomaly), which is measured by Tamhae 2, KIGAM in a period between 2000 and 2002. The measured gravity anomaly in the investigations area is mainly responsed by depth and density differences between the sedimentary basin and the basement. The high density model-bodies extend mainly from the southern part of China to the middle-western part of the Korean Peninsula, which might be emplaced along the continental collision’s boundary. The total volume of the very low density model-bodies might be expected at about 20,000 km3 in the model area.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 1999

The errors between track segments or at the cross-over points of shipborne gravity were successfully reduced by applying a cross-over error adjustment technique using satellite gravity. The integration of shipborne and satellite altimeter-implied free-air gravity anomalies after the cross-over error adjustment resulted in a high resolution gravity map which contains both short and long wavelength components. The successful adjustment of the cross-over errors in the shipborne gravity using the satellite gravity suggests that the shipborne gravity can be combined with the satellite anomalies characterized by a stable and long wavelength component. The resulting free-air anomaly map is evenly harmonized with both short and long wavelength anomalies. Thus the corrected anomaly map can be better used for the geological interpretation. Free-air anomalies with more than 140 mGal in total variations generally correspond to the seafloor topographic changes in their regional patterns. A series of gravity highs are aligned from the Korea Plateau to the Oki Island, which are interpreted to be caused by seamounts or volcanic topographies. The gravity minima along the western and southern shelf edge are associated not only with the local basement morphology and thick sediment fill at the continental margin, but also possibly with the crustal edge effect known for passive continental margins. Series of NE-trending linear anomalies are possibly caused by a swarm of volcanic intrusions followed the initial opening of the Ulleung Basin. The linear high anomalies in the Ulleung Plateau are terminated by the straightly NNW-trending anomalies with a sharp gradient in its western boundary which indicates a fault-line scarp. The opposite side adjoined with the fault-line scarp shows no correlation with the fault-line scarp in geometry indicating that the block might be horizontally slided from the north. A gravity high in contrast to the deepening in seafloor toward the northeastern central Ulleung Basin is probably responsible for the thin crust and shallow seated mantle. The gravity minima along the western and southern shelf edge are associated not only with the local basement morphology and thick sediment fill at the continental margin, but also possibly with the crustal edge effect known for passive continental margins. Series of NE-trending linear anomalies are possibly caused by a swarm of volcanic intrusions followed the initial opening of the Ulleung Basin. The linear high anomalies in the Ulleung Plateau are terminated by the straightly NNW-trending anomalies with a sharp gradient in its western boundary which indicates a fault-line scarp. The opposite side adjoined with the fault-line scarp shows no correlation with the fault-line scarp in geometry indicating that the block might be horizontally slided from the north. A gravity high in contrast to the deepening in seafloor toward the northeastern central Ulleung Basin is probably suggestive of a thin crust and shallow seated mantle.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2019

We present gravity anomaly maps based on KIGAM's gravity data measured from 2000 to 2018. Until 2016, we acquired gravity data on about 6,400 points for the purpose of regional mapping covering the whole country with data density of at least one point per $4km{\times}4km$ for reducing the time of the data acquisition. In addition, we have performed local gravity surveys for the purpose of mining development in and around the NMC Moland Mine at Jecheon in 2013 and in the Taebaeksan mineralized zone from 2015 to 2018 with data interval of several hundred meters to 2 km. Meanwhile, we carried out precise gravity explorations with data interval of about 250 m on and around epicenter areas of Gyeongju and Pohang earthquakes of relatively large magnitude which occurred in 2016 and in 2017, respectively. Thus we acquired in total about 9,600 points data as the result. We also used additional data acquired by Pusan National University for some local areas. Finally, gravity data more than 16,000 points except for the repetition and temporal control points were available to calculate free-air, Bouguer, and isostatic gravity anomalies. Therefore, the presented anomaly maps are most advanced in spatial distribution and the number of used data so far in Korea.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.34-44
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• 1998

Analysis of gravity, magnetic, and seismic reflection data from the Ulleung Basin, East Sea has provided some insights into the opening mechanism and crustal type of the basin. Free-air gravity anomaly data show positive anomalies of about 40~60 mgal near the Korea Plateau and Oki Bank and of about -20~20 mgal in the central basin. Bouguer gravity anomaly data exhibit NE-SW trending positive anomalies of about 150 mgal in the central basin which is interpreted to be related to high-density crustal material. Abrupt changes in both Free-air and Bouguer gravity anomaly profiles across the basin margins may be due to transition between continental and oceanic crusts. Magnetic anomalies in the basin are generally less than -400 nT. No stripe pattern is evident in the magnetic anomaly map but a NW-SE trending symmetric pattern is seen in some magnetic profiles. The symmetric pattern is probably associated with the high-density crustal material in the central basin suggested by Bouguer gravity anomaly. The acoustic basement in the deep part of the basin has only a small amount of local relief. No graben or half-graben structures are seen in the acoustic basement from which mechanical extension might be inferred. The lack of high-relief structures in the acoustic basement may suggest that the basin is underlain by oceanic crust or that the basement is overlain by thick volcanic layer which obscures the structures and relief of the basement. High-density crust in the central basin inferred from gravity data, abrupt changes in gravity anomalies across the basin margins, symmetric pattern seen in some magnetic anomaly profiles, and lack of relief in the acoustic basement may suggest sea-floor spreading origin of the Ulleung Basin.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.559-564
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• 1997

The New Hebrides Basin is an inactive non back-arc basin located at the convergent boundary of the Pacific and Info-Australian plates. This basin was formed from 46 Ma to 60 Ma. The basin has two spreading episodes with rates of 34 mm/a for 42 to 47 Ma and 17 mm/a for 47 to 60 Ma. The sediments covered in the basin has uniform thickness of 0.65 sec. The age-depth correlation curve of the New Hebrides Basin can be represented by the following equation: $Depth(m)=2689+312\sqrt{Age}(Ma)$ The coefficient of 312 in this equation is close to that for major oceans, 350. This suggests that the cooling processes of the lithospheres in the New Hebrides Basin and major oceans are similar to each other. Free-air gravity anomalies of the basin varying from -22.3 mgal to +59.0 mgal. The mean value is +30.2 mgal higher than those of the normal oceans. Moderately large free-air gravity anomalies in the New Hebrides Basin are presumably owing to its location on a marginal swell along the New Hebrides Trench. It is generally observed that the ocean floor is very gently uplifted in a zone about 200 km oceanward of the trench axis. Positive free-air gravity anomalies amounting to $50{\sim}60$ mgal are usually observed on the crest of the swell. This topography is presumably by bending of the oceanic lithosphere so as to dynamically maintain nonisostatic states for some duration.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.213-223
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• 2003

We estimated the Moho depth of Korean Peninsula from gravity anomalies and digital elevation model. The satellite radar altimetry-derived global free-air gravity model was used to ensure the homogeneity in both data and frequency domains of the original data. Two different methods were implemented to calculate the Moho depth; the wavenumber correlation analysis (Kim et al., 2000a) and the power spectrum analysis. The former method calculates depth-to-the-Moho by correlating topographic gravity effect with free-air gravity anomaly in the wavenumber domain under the assumption that the study area is not isostatically compensated. The latter one, on the other hand, considers the different density layers (i.e., Conrad and Moho), using complete Bouguer gravity anomaly in the Frequency domain of the Fourier transform. The correlation coefficient of the two Moho model is 0.53, and methodology and numerical error are mainly responsible for any mismatch between the two models. In order to integrate the two independentely-estimated models, we applied least-squares adjustment using the differenced depth. The resultant model has mean and standard deviation Moho depths of 32.0 km and 2.5 km with (min, max) depths of (20.3, 36.6) kms. Although this result does not include any topographic gravity effect, however, the validity of isostasy and the role of local stress field in the study area should be further studied.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2010

The ship-borne gravity data is essential to construct geoid in Korea surrounding ocean area. The altimeter data was used in previous study, however, the ship-borne gravity data could be used due to more ship-borne data was collected by improvement of instrument, positioning system. Therefore, the study on verification of precision of ship-borne gravity data and practical usage analysis is needed. In this study, free-air anomaly having 16.47mGal and 18.86mGal as mean and standard deviation was obtained after consistent processing such as Eotvos correction, Kalman Filter, Cross-over adjustment etc. The calculated free-air anomaly was compared to DNSC08 altimeter data and the difference was computed having -0.88mGal and 9.46mGal of mean and standard deviation. The reason causing those differences are owing to spatial limits of data acquisition and effects of ocean topography. To use ship-borne gravity data for precision geoid development, the efforts to overcome the limits of data collection and study for data combination should be proceeded.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.493-502
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• 2011

We study the deep structure of Korean Peninsula by estimating Moho depth and crustal thickness from using land and oceanic topography and free-air gravity anomaly data. Based on Airy-Heiskanen isostatic hypothesis, the correlated components between the terrain gravity effects and free-air gravity anomalies by wavenumber correlation analysis(WCA) are extracted to estimate the gravity effects that will be resulted from isostatic compensation for the area. With the resulting compensated gravity estimates, Moho depth that is a subsurface between the crust and mantle is estimated by the inversion in an iterative method with the constraints of 20 seismic depth estimates by the receiver function analysis, to minimize the uncertainty of non-uniqueness. Consequently, the average of the resulting crustal thickness estimate of Korean Peninsula is 32.15 km and the standard deviation is 3.12 km. Moho depth of South Korea estimated from this study is compared with the ones from the previous studies, showing they are approximately consistent. And the aspects of Moho undulation from the respective study are in common deep along Taebaek Mountains and Sobaek Mountains and low depth in Gyeongsang Basin relatively. Also, it is discussed that the terrain decorrelated free-air gravity anomalies inferring from the intracrustal characteristics of the crust are compared to the heat flow distributions of South Korea. The low-frequency components of terrain decorrelated Free-air gravity anomalies are highly correlated with the heat flow data, especially in the area of Gyeongsang basin where high heat flow causes to decrease the density of the rocks in the lower crust resulting in lowering the Moho depth by compensation. This result confirms that the high heat sources in this area coming from the upper mantle by Kim et al. (2008).