Magnetic Anomaly Grid and Associated Uncertainty From Marine Trackline Data: The Caribbean Alternative Navigation Reference Experiment (CANREx)

Abstract

AbstractCrustal magnetic anomaly maps over oceanic regions are based largely on marine trackline surveys. These surveys, collected from the 1950s to the present, span a wide range of data quality and reliability. We discuss a methodology for constructing grids from these data with associated cell by cell estimates of grid uncertainty. The method is tested with a modern airborne survey for a representative region in the eastern Caribbean. The results are promising, producing an uncertainty estimate that is accurate to one standard deviation for the test area. As magnetic anomaly maps and grids are increasingly applied as constraints for geologic interpretation as well as for alternative navigation (e.g., navigation by magnetic field patterns in the absence of GPS), it is important to quantify the accuracy of these maps.