NOAA's Table Mountain Gravity Observatory (TMGO) is located in a seismically quiet federal preserve near Boulder, Colorado. The primary mission of TMGO is is to conduct the absolute gravity observing program for the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program, and for other NOAA research and monitoring activities. TMGO's mission also includes all operational and technical support (calibration, repair, and deployment) of NOAA's FG5 absolute gravity meter. TMGO also operates the National Science Foundataion (NSF) FG5 absolute gravity meter and provides similar operational and technical support for this NSF national instrument facility which is available to academic researchers.
TMGO is instrumented with a continuously operating cryogenic gravity meter and GPS receiver.
The scientific staff stationed at TMGO participates actively in the Boulder geosciences community, collaborating with researchers at the University of Colorado, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratory and related organizations such as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the University Navstar Consortium.
TMGO's mission is to conduct gravimetric research and perform high-precision gravity measurements in the USA and abroad. It supports national and international programs involving geodynamics and the better understanding of global and climate change. The program provides reference values necessary for monitoring vertical crustal motion, calibrating absolute and relative gravimeters, and for understanding better the temporal variations of gravity. To remain at the leading edge of technology and science, the group conducts practical and theoretical studies of operational and newly developing gravity instrumentation and methods of measurement, geophysical modeling, and data reduction and error analysis. It supplies information and assistance to other government agencies, the public, and the international scientific community on the theory and application of high- precision gravimetry.
In its first few years of operation, TMGO has become a major center for intercomparisons of gravity meters, with space for up to nine instruments operating simultaneously on separate and isolated observing piers.
In this photo, both the NOAA and NSF FG5 absolute gravimeters are shown.