Gravity measurements can now map buried pipes, tunnels, and seabed structures in hours instead of weeks. Traditional gravity surveys are slow and easily disrupted by geological noise, limiting their use for urban infrastructure and archaeology. GG-TOP brings together physicists, engineers, and archaeologists to build a new generation of gravity-gradient instruments that are faster, more sensitive, and better at distinguishing underground objects from surrounding rock. If the programme succeeds, utility companies could locate buried pipes and cables without digging, construction teams could detect hidden voids and cellars before they cause collapses, and seabed inspections for cables or pipelines would become far more efficient. Archaeologists could map buried structures without excavation. The same technology also enables fundamental tests of general relativity. The consortium is not building a single device. It is developing a modular technology suite that can be adapted for different uses—from urban mapping to fundamental physics—with follow-on product development programmes already anticipated.
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Gravity measurements exert a particular fascination ranging from the everyday experience of feeling the gravitational force holding us on ground to the mysteries of general relativity and space time. Compared to other forces gravity is surprisingly weak, making shielding of gravitation practically impossible. Gravity measurements are ideally suited to look deep inside the ground and they have been used for over 100 years in fields as oil and mineral exploration, underground mapping and climate research. However, although gravity measurements are highly valued, there are some drawbacks in terms of long and tedious measurements and geological noise. GG-TOP responds to an increasingly pressing demand for a holistic development programme driving sensitivity of instrumentation, modelling instrument and geological noise, discriminating underground objects, fusing and presenting the information from multi-sensor systems. The GG-TOP consortium is truely multi-disciplinary uniting fundamental and applied physicists, civil and electrical engineers and archaeologists behind a joint goal. GG-TOP has a strong Stakeholder compontent with interactions at all levels and potential users directly influencing the research programme. GG-TOP will explicitly evaluate the potential of its new technology in applications as diverse as urban infrastructure (pipes, cables...) and void (cellars, tunnels,..) mapping, seabed inspection, archaeology and fundamental tests of physics. We anticipate the outcome of this programme to be a technology suite adaptable to various needs and leading to a range of follow-on product development programmes.
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