ESA’s GOCE gravity mission and Swarm magnetic field mission are key to this research. The 3D Earth research, which involves scientists from nine institutes in six European countries, is funded through ESA’s Science for Society programme.

Jörg Ebbing from Kiel University, noted, “This is just a first step so we have more work to do, but we plan to release the 3D Earth models in 2020.” For example, the new models of the thickness of the crust and the lithosphere are important for unexplored continents like Antarctica. While this is just a first step, 3D Earth offers tantalising insights into the deep structure of our world. It is the first time that gravity gradients have been inverted on a global scale in such an integrated framework.” Wolfgang Szwillus from Kiel University, added, “Data from ESA’s GOCE satellite mission served as input for the inversion. Juan Carlos Afonso, from Australia’s Macquarie University and Norway’s Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics, said, “We are realising the new global model of Earth's lithosphere and upper mantle by combining gravity anomalies, geoid height and gravity gradients complemented with seismic, thermal and rock information. The model will make a step change in being able to analyse Earth’s lithosphere, which is the rigid outer shell, and the underlying mantle to understand the link between Earth’s structure and the dynamic processes within.

New results, based on a paper published recently in Geophysical Journal International and presented at this week’s Living Planet Symposium, reveal how scientists are using a range of different measurements including satellite data along with seismological models to start producing a global 3D Earth reference model. Density variations in the crust and upper mantle

3d earth view