Despite its great importance to the study of global geologic structures, interpreting gravity anomalies is not a trivial task because the observed gravity field is the resultant of every gravity effect produced by every elementary density contrast. Therefore, in order to isolate the effects produced by shallow sources from those produced by deep sources, I present a new method for regional-residual separation and methods for interpreting each isolated component. The regional-residual separation is perfomed by approximating the regional field by a polynomial fitted to the observed field by a robust method. This method is iterative and its starting value is the least-squares fitting. Also, the influence of observations containing substantial contributions of the residual field in the regional field fitting is minimized. The computed regional field is transformed into a map of vertical distances relative to a given datum. This transformation consists of two stages. The first one is the downward continuation of the regional field which is assumed to be produced by a smooth interface separating two homogeneous media: the crust and the mantle. The density contrast between the media is presumably known. The second stage consists in transforming the downward continued field into a map of vertical distances relative to a given datum by means of simple operations. This method presents two difficulties. The first one is related to the instability inherent to the downward continuation operation. The use of a stabilizer is therefore mandatory, leading to an inevitable loss of resolution of the features being mapped. The second difficulty, inherent to the gravity method, is the impossibility of determining the interface absolute depths. However, the knowledge of the absolute depth at one single point of the interface by independent means allows the computation of all absolute depths. The computed residual component is transformed into an apparent density map. This transformation consists in calculating the intensity of several prismatic sources by linear inversion, assuming that the real sources are confined to a horizontal slab and have density contrasts varying only along the horizontal directions. The performance of the regional-residual separation method was assessed in tests using synthetic data, always producing better results as compared either with polynomial fitting by least-squares or with the spectral analysis method. The method for interpreting the regional component was applied to synthetic data producing interfaces very close to the true ones. The limit of resolution of the features being mapped depend not only on the degree of the fitting polynomial, but also on the limitation imposed by the gravity method itself. In interpreting the residual component, a priori information is needed about the depth and thickness of the slab confining the true sources. However, results of tests using synthetic data showed that reasonable estimates for the h6rizontal limits of the sources can be obtained, even when the depth and thickness of the slab are not known. The ambiguity involving depth to the top, thickness and the apparent density can be visualized by means of curves of apparent density as a function of the presumed depth to the top of the slab, each curve corresponding to a particular assumed value for the slab thickness. An analysis of the configuration of the curves allows a semi-quantitative interpretation of the real sources depths. The sequence of all three methods described above was applied to gravity data from northern Piauí and northwestern Ceará state. As a result, a crustal organization model was obtained consisting of crustal thickenings and thinnings related to a compressive event which caused the raise of dense, lower crust rocks to shallower depths. This model is consistent with surface geological information. Also, the .gravity interpretation suggests the continuity of the Northwestern Ceará Shear Belt for more than 200 km under the Parnaíba Basin sedimentary cover. Although the sequence of methods presented here has been developed for the study of large scale crustal structures, it could also be applied to the interpretation of smaller structures, as, for example, the basement relief of a sedimentary basin where the sediments have been intruded by mafic rocks.
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