decrypting silicic magma plug fragmentation at azufral crater lake northern andes insights from fine to extremely fine ash morpho chemistry azufral sw colombia is a dangerous silicic volcano hosting a crater lake which serves as an excellent example of an incipient plug disruption through phreatomagmatism we studied the youngest succession of dilute pyroclastic density currents pdcs onlapping the north eastern crater rim scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive x ray spectroscopy was used to carry out an automated single particle analysis of fine to extremely fine ash we were able to obtain fast and accurate chemical analysis and imaging of 15 098 particles within the 250 63 m and the 63 32 m size ranges the 2d form and roughness parameters were determined for 4895 juvenile glassy particles and validated by 3d micro x ray computer tomography there are two end members of high group 1 and low group 2 roughness juvenile glassy particles group 1 comprises high roughness glass particles with solidity values as low as 0 34 in 2d and 0 33 in 3d and convexity values as low as 0 33 in 2d and 0 26 in 3d group 2 comprises low roughness glass particles with 2d solidity values 0 79 and 3d solidity values typically 0 58 in this group 2d convexity values are 0 68 and 3d convexity values are 0 71 both end members are mostly discriminated by the 2d concavity index 0 14 to 0 77 in group 1 vs 0 05 0 35 in group 2 the remaining group 3 comprises particles of intermediate roughness values in this study we show how an incipient plug developed over a short repose time might be subjected to only a few cycles of vesicle nucleation collapse and densification retaining the characteristics of juvenile glass each glassy juvenile ash type defined by a particular morphology roughness and microtexture can be linked to a density stratified conduit model in azufral the capping and conduit lining dense regions and the permeable zones of the incipient plug likely cracked the newly formed cracks could allow hydraulic forcing caused by external water and induce phreatomagmatic interaction this interaction favoured the fine fragmentation of the plug while enhancing ongoing magmatic processes finally the variations of bulk componentry provided clues on dilute pyroclastic density current transport and physical fractionation processes by secondary fragmentation elutriation and interaction with the crater rim

intensity of the geomagnetic field in western europe over the past 2000 years new data from ancient french pottery 1 we studied 14 groups of french pottery fragments dated between the 4th and 16th centuries the potsherds were analyzed using the thellier and thellier 1959 method revised by coe 1967 intensity values were corrected for thermoremanent magnetization trm anisotropy and cooling rate dependence of trm acquisition we first analyzed modern ceramics produced following ancient techniques and fired in a wood burning kiln inside of which field intensity was measured the recovered mean intensity is within 3 of the expected value which proves the reliability of our experimental procedure thermal experiments carried out at rapid and slow cooling rates clearly indicate that the cooling rate correction is critical in archeointensity studies our data indicate that large variations in intensity occurred in france over the last 2000 years two relative maxima in intensity are observed one between the 8th and 10th centuries and the second between the 14th and 15th centuries similarities are observed between the archeointensity data from france and ukraine yielding some evidence for eastward drift of geomagnetic sources between western and eastern europe from a d 800 to a d 1700 we also show that the dipole moment evolution proposed by mcelhinny and senanayake 1982 and yang et al 2000 for the last two millennia is likely biased toward higher values mainly because of the absence of correction for the cooling rate dependence of trm acquisition in most published archeointensity studies we finally underline a possible relationship valid at least in western europe between changes in direction and intensity of the geomagnetic field

high paleointensities for the canary islands constrain the levant geomagnetic high understanding the behavior of enigmatic geomagnetic traits such as the levant intensity high is currently challenged by a lack of full vector records of regional variations in the geomagnetic field here we apply the recently proposed multi method paleointensity approach to a suite of 19 lavas from the canary islands dating between 4000 bc and 1909 ad our new record reveals high paleointensities vadms 120 zam2 coinciding with and shortly after the peak in geomagnetic intensity in the levant at 1000 bc furthermore our data suggests a westward movement of this geomagnetic phenomenon at a rate of 6 7 12 per century in addition to izzi thellier microwave thellier and the multi specimen method the calibrated pseudo thellier method is an important part of the multi method paleointensity approach the calibration of this relative paleointensity method was derived from a suite of hawaiian lavas it is improved with the results of the canarian cooling units pseudo thellier results from samples with very low curie temperature 150 c however cannot be reliably converted to absolute paleointensity estimates the multi method paleointensity approach yielded a reliable estimate for 60 of the flows sampled an unusually high success rate for a paleointensity study involving lavas

spine growth and seismogenic faulting at mt unzen japan the concluding episode of activity during the recent eruption of mt unzen october 1994 to february 1995 was characterized by incremental spine extrusion accompanied by seismicity analysis of the seismic record reveals the occurrence of two dominant long period event families associated with a repeating nondestructive source mechanism which we attribute to magma failure and fault controlled ascent we obtain constraints on the slip rate and distance of faulting events within these families that analysis is complemented by an experimental thermomechanical investigation of fault friction in mt unzen dacitic dome rock using a rotary shear apparatus at variable slip rates and normal stresses a power density threshold is found at 0 3 mw m 2 above which frictional melt forms and controls the shear resistance to slip inducing a deviation from byerlee s frictional law homogenized experimentally generated pseudotachylytes have a similar final chemistry thickness and crystal content facilitating the construction of a rheological model for particle suspensions this is compared to the viscosity constrained from the experimental data to assess the viscous control on fault dynamics the onset of frictional melt formation during spine growth is constrained to depths below 300 m for an average slip event this combination of experimental data viscosity modeling and seismic analysis offers a new description of material response during conduit plug flow and spine growth showing that volcanic pseudotachylyte may commonly form and modify fault friction during faulting of dome rock this model furthers our understanding of faulting and seismicity during lava dome formation and is applicable to other eruption modes

two thousand years of archeointensity from west africa this study presents 17 archeointensity estimates from senegal and mali two neighboring countries in west africa for the period 1000 bce to 1000 ce the archeological artifacts used in this study were collected during the course of two separate projects together spanning 22 years and across 8 separate excavations a primary objective of this study was to get accurate dates hence only samples with independent age constraints from pottery style detailed stratigraphy and 14c dates were used a total of 236 specimens from 63 samples were subjected to a double heating paleointensity experiment izzi method from which 95 specimens were selected using a set of very strict selection criteria the paleointensity results were corrected for differential cooling rate effects and remanence anisotropy additionally we demonstrate the equivalence of using tensors derived from anhysteretic and thermal remanences for correcting remanent anisotropy of the specimens and use the former for the anisotropy correction our data show good agreement with the most recent paleosecular variation model but are lower than the pre existing data which are mostly from egypt and morocco the presence of substantial non axial dipolar contributions in the region is evident when virtual axial dipole moments vadms from the published literature are calculated for 20 latitudinal bands and compared with our data the average vadm values show a distinct latitudinal gradient a prominent feature of this dataset is an intensity high observed prior to 700 ce in both senegal and mali comparing this peak with existing records from regions further to the north suggests a small but significant temporal offset and is interpreted to be additional evidence for a geomagnetic field with a significant and rapidly changing non axial dipolar contribution

stochastic modelling of regional archaeomagnetic series summary we report a new method to infer continuous time series of the declination inclination and intensity of the magnetic field from archeomagnetic data adopting a bayesian perspective we need to specify a priori knowledge about the time evolution of the magnetic field it consists in a time correlation function that we choose to be compatible with present knowledge about the geomagnetic time spectra the results are presented as distributions of possible values for the declination inclination or intensity we find that the methodology can be adapted to account for the age uncertainties of archeological artefacts and we use markov chain monte carlo to explore the possible dates of observations we apply the method to intensity datasets from mari syria and to intensity and directional datasets from paris france our reconstructions display more rapid variations than previous studies and we find that the possible values of geomagnetic field elements are not necessarily normally distributed another output of the model is better age estimates of archeological artefacts

archaeomagnetism of burnt cherts and hearths from middle palaeolithic amud cave israel tools for reconstructing site formation processes and occupation history abstract apart from magnetostratigraphy archaeomagnetism is rarely used in middle and late pleistocene sites here we present detailed palaeomagnetic analyses of cemented hearths and burnt chert items from amud cave israel 68 55 ka two types of materials common in levantine middle palaeolithic cave sites both materials are shown to be recorders of the geomagnetic field and were used to reconstruct either the ancient field direction for cemented hearths or intensity palaeointensity for chert at the time of the last burning or shortly after we test the utility of palaeomagnetic data to further our understanding of temporal aspects of occupations in the cave by comparing the dispersion of the palaeomagnetic data to the known characteristics of geomagnetic secular variation in the holocene we show that divergent palaeointensities can help identify diachronic burning events suggesting different activity patterns in two areas of the cave additionally we used palaeomagnetic directional vectors to distinguish between a well preserved hearth and one that had been mixed prior to cementation using rock magnetic investigations we demonstrate that magnetic methods can be used as a relatively fast and inexpensive method to identify burning of cherts in antiquity above 500 c the palaeomagnetic results are in agreement with results of previous studies at amud cave obtained by other independent methods this study shows that palaeomagnetic methods can serve as a powerful tool in the study of palaeolithic sites

transitions between explosive and effusive eruptions of silicic magmas water rich silicic magmas may erupt explosively giving rise to massive columns of fragmented ash1 5 or effusively as viscous bubbly lavas to form lava domes6 8 complex cycles of explosive and effusive eruptions are often observed8 12 although these two eruption mechanisms have been modelled independently1 8 the conditions under which a volcano exhibits a particular style of eruption are not known and the transitions between eruption styles are poorly understood by modelling the ascent of magma along a permeable conduit we show here that for small magma chamber overpressures the style of eruption explosive or effusive is dependent on the magma flow rate we also identify a critical overpressure above which only explosive eruptions occur complex eruption sequences follow naturally for example if a shallow magmatic system is supplied with magma at an intermediate flow rate the eruption will be slow and effusive until the chamber over pressure becomes too large an explosive eruption then relieves the overpressure and an effusive eruption style resumes we suggest that monitoring of temporal variations in chamber overpressure for example by measuring ground deformation can be used to assess whether a passively effusing volcano has the potential to erupt explosively

archaeomagnetism at ebla tell mardikh syria new data on geomagnetic field intensity variations in the near east during the bronze age abstract thanks to systematic excavations conducted at tell mardikh ebla syria during more than 40 years we collected eleven groups of bronze age ceramic fragments defining a series of seven time intervals dated to between 2300 bc and 1400 bc archaeointensity experiments were performed using the triaxe protocol that takes into account both anisotropy thermoremanent magnetization and cooling rate effects the results complemented by three other data previously obtained from ebla allow the recovery of geomagnetic field intensity variations over nearly 1000 years characterized by a v shape with a distinct relative intensity minimum around the 18th century bc they also permit to constrain the occurrence of an intensity maximum between 2300 and 2000 bc together with other archaeointensity data obtained from syrian levantine and anatolian regions the results from ebla help to make emerging a coherent pattern of geomagnetic field intensity variations in the near east over the entire bronze period this evolution was marked by distinct intensity maxima at 2600 2500 bc 2300 2000 bc 1550 1350 bc and at the very beginning of the first millennium bc iron age the latter showing a much higher magnitude than the three older ones we discuss the fact that the detected geomagnetic field intensity maxima could be associated with the occurrence of archaeomagnetic jerks that appear synchronous within age uncertainties with significant regional climatic fluctuations

geomagnetic intensity spike recorded in high resolution slag deposit in southern jordan article i nfo in paleomagnetism periods of high field intensity have been largely ignored in favor of the more spectacular directional changes associated with low field intensity periods of excursions and reversals hence questions such as how strong the field can get and how fast changes occur are still open in this paper we report on data obtained from an archaeometallurgical excavation in the middle east designed specifically for archaeomagnetic sampling we measured 342 specimens from 72 samples collected from a 6 1 m mound of well stratified copper production debris at the early iron age 12th 9th centuries bce site of khirbat en nahas in southern jordan seventeen samples spanning 200 yr yielded excellent archaeointensity results that demonstrate rapid changes in field intensity in a period of overall high field values the results display a remarkable spike in field strength with sample mean values of over 120 t compared to the current field strength of 44 t a suite of 13 radiocarbon dates intimately associated with our samples tight control of sample location and relative stratigraphy provide tight constraints on the rate and magnitude of changes in archaeomagnetic field intensities

full vector archaeomagnetic records from anatolia between 2400 and 1350 bce implications for geomagnetic field models and the dating of fires in antiquity abstract anatolia as one of the busiest crossroads of ancient civilizations provides an ideal platform for archaeomagnetic studies previous results from the middle east have suggested the occurrence of a strong peak in geomagnetic intensity at 1000 bce associated with dramatic field strength variations that could require a radical rethinking of geodynamo theory the behavior of the field in the centuries preceding this peak remains poorly constrained however here we present the results of full vector archaeomagnetic experiments performed on 18 sets of samples from three archaeological sites belonging to assyrian trade colony and hittite periods associated rock magnetic analyses showed that the major magnetic carrier is magnetite chemically stable up to 700 c and the magnetic mineral assemblage is composed mostly of non interacting psd grains the directional results are compared with existing data and with the most recent global geomagnetic field models pfm9k 1b and sha dif 14k the directions are in remarkably good agreement with sha dif 14k which is based on archaeomagnetic and lava flow data together with our earlier results from anatolia we triple the existing database of directions for the 700 year long period 2200 1500 bce over a large region from greece to azerbaijan and from moldavia ukraine to egypt three archaeointensity methods thermal izzi thellier microwave thellier and the multi specimen protocol msp produced virtual axial dipole moment estimates 9 0 10 9 10 22 am 2 that are somewhat higher than contemporaneous regional and global data and model predictions suggesting that the field was already substantially stronger than today more than 800 years prior to the reported peak in addition to constraining geomagnetic variability our data also allow us to assign relative dates to inferred fire events in the assyrian trade colony period sites this allows us to conclude that the fire events at the largest site kultepe were not all contemporaneous with one another and with the abandonment of the site as has been previously hypothesized

depositional remanent magnetization toward an improved theoretical and experimental foundation the first theoretical predictions for the behavior of magnetic particles in water were that sedimentary magnetizations would be fully aligned with the ambient field yet redeposition experiments showed a strong and quasi linear dependence on the external field this empirically observed linearity has served as the fundamental assumption of sedimentary paleointensity studies for decades we present redeposition experiments which suggest instead that the relationship between depositional remanence drm and applied field may frequently be curved for magnetic fields in the range of the earth s numerical simulations using a flocculation model can explain the redeposition data and suggest that drm will be significantly non linear when the flocs are small several microns there is a strong dependence of floc size on salinity particularly in low salinity environments floc size has a profound influence on the efficiency of drm hence low salinity environment may give results with poor reproducibility the size of the floc in which magnetic particles are embedded is not accounted for in current methods of normalization yet is the most important parameter on the bright side however it now seems possible to quantitatively explain paleointensity in sedimentary systems opening the door to absolute paleointensity estimates from sediments whose key parameters of floc size distribution and settling times can be constrained

long term variations in palaeointensity we compile a dataset of reliable palaeointensity estimates based both on published work and on new data from basaltic glass the basaltic glass data more than double the number of reliable thellie

new late neolithic c 7000 5000 bc archeointensity data from syria reconstructing 9000years of archeomagnetic field intensity variations in the middle east we present new archeomagnetic intensity data from two late neolithic archeological sites tell halula and tell masaikh in syria these data from 24 groups of potsherds encompassing 15 different time levels are obtained using the triaxe experimental protocol which takes into account both the thermoremanent magnetization anisotropy and cooling rate effects on intensity determinations they allow us to recover the geomagnetic intensity variations in the middle east between 7000 bc and 5000 bc i e during the so called pre halaf proto halaf halaf and halaf ubaid transitional cultural phases the data are compared with previous archeointensity results of similar ages from northern iraq yarim tepe ii and tell sotto and bulgaria we find that previous dating of the iraqi material was in error when corrected all northern mesopotamian data show a relatively good consistency and also reasonably match with the bulgarian archeointensity dataset using a compilation of available data we construct a geomagnetic field intensity variation curve for the middle east encompassing the past 9000 years which makes it presently the longest known regional archeomagnetic intensity record we further use this compilation to constrain variations in dipole field moment over most of the holocene in particular we discuss the possibility that a significant dipole moment maximum occurred during the third millennium bc which cannot easily be identified in available time varying global geomagnetic field reconstructions

time variations in geomagnetic intensity 1 after many years spent by paleomagnetists studying the directional behavior of the earth s magnetic field at all possible timescales detailed measurements of field intensity are now needed to document the variations of the entire vector and to analyze the time evolution of the field components a significant step has been achieved by combining intensity records derived from archeological materials and from lava flows in order to extract the global field changes over the past 12 kyr a second significant step was due to the emergence of coherent records of relative paleointensity using the remanent magnetization of sediments to retrace the evolution of the dipole field a third step was the juxtaposition of these signals with those derived from cosmogenic isotopes contemporaneous with the acquisition of records new techniques have been developed to constrain the geomagnetic origin of the signals much activity has also been devoted to improving the quality of determinations of absolute paleointensity from volcanic rocks with new materials proper selection of samples and investigations of complex changes in magnetization during laboratory experiments altogether these developments brought us from a situation where the field changes were restricted to the past 40 kyr to the emergence of a coherent picture of the changes in the geomagnetic dipole moment for at least the past 1 myr on longer timescales the field variability and its average behavior is relatively well documented for the past 400 myr section 3 gives a summary of most methods and techniques that are presently used to track the field intensity changes in the past in each case current limits and potential promises are discussed the section 4 describes the field variations measured so far over various timescales covered by the archeomagnetic and the paleomagnetic records preference has always been given to composite records and databases in order to extract and discuss major and global geomagnetic features special attention has been devoted to discussing the degree of confidence to be put in the data by considering the integration of multiple data sets involving different techniques and or materials

testing the accuracy of absolute intensity estimates of the ancient geomagnetic field using copper slag material abstract the middle eastern copper slag is a promising new material for studying intensity variations in the geomagnetic field with high resolution and precision the purpose of this study is to test the accuracy of archaeointensity estimates determined using copper slag by addressing two questions 1 does slag material display the magnetic properties required for valid thellier experiments and 2 what is the accuracy of the archaeointensity estimates derived from thellier style experiments on optimal samples we address the first question through a comprehensive microscopic and magnetic study of representative archaeological slag samples in order to identify the properties responsible for optimal behavior in thellier experiments to address the second question we reproduced slag samples in the laboratory under controlled magnetic fields and analyzed them using the same izzi paleointensity technique used for the ancient slag microscopic analyses of the archaeological slag show that ferromagnetic phases occur as three dimensional dendritic structures whose branches consist of submicron elongated particles magnetic analyses show that these dendrites behave as an assemblage of shape controlled single domain like particles and that their magnetization is thermoremanent we conclude that slag material can be magnetically suitable for valid thellier experiments the laboratory produced slag material demonstrated similar magnetic and mineralogical properties as the archaeological slag izzi experiments showed that non linear trm acquisition even at field strengths similar to earth s and trm anisotropy are important factors to monitor during paleointensity studies of slag material anisotropy and non linearity are probably related to the dendritic shape of the oxide grains intensity estimates derived from three laboratory produced slag samples demonstrated accuracy to within 5 after applying the required corrections

refining the archaeomagnetic dating curve for the near east new intensity data from bronze age ceramics at tell mozan syria abstract uncertainty in radiocarbon dates for the near east caused by a bimodal distribution of ages due to the natural fluctuations of 14 c in the atmosphere has demonstrated the need for an alternative absolute dating technique to aid in the construction of site chronologies here we present a new archaeointensity reference curve model for the first three millennia bce for the levant syria israel jordan for use in archaeomagnetic dating and contribute twelve new intensity results to an increasingly dense geomagnetic field record for the period between 2400 and 1200 bce in the near east archaeomagnetic analysis was conducted on ceramic samples i e pottery sherds from seven sequential and well constrained occupational layers at the site of tell mozan bronze age urkesh in northeastern syria resulting in a 90 success rate by specimen n 42 for archaeointensity determination and an 86 correspondence between the model and the archaeologically derived dates within one standard deviation 1 age standard deviations as low as 24 years were obtained after integration with stratigraphic constraints we also outline the techniques and sampling procedures of archaeomagnetic dating in a manner suitable for the non paleomagnetist while detailing methodology for archaeomagnetic researchers

high fidelity paleointensity determination from historic volcanoes in japan 1 providing high fidelity paleointensity estimates is pivotal to identify temporal fluctuation of ancient geomagnetic field despite abundance of available paleointensity data in japan only dozen of them satisfy modern standards with systematic alteration checks high fidelity paleointensity estimates were obtained from historic andesitic lavas collected from mt aso ojodake 700 bc mt kirishima iwoyama ad 1768 ohachi ad 1235 and mt sakurajima an ei ad 1779 nabeyama ad 764 766 variation of geomagnetic field intensity is distinctively different from the prediction of global models arch3k 1 cals3k 3 cals3k 4 cals7k 2 and cals10k 1b for the past 4000 years in japan the compilation of high fidelity thellier data set in japan showed two obvious high intensities at ad 590 765 and ad 1330 1435 and one low intensity at 700 bc these time intervals with anomalous high low intensities are nearly identical to three of the four potential archeomagnetic jerks recognized from the european archeomagnetic data implying that the archeomagnetic jerks were global or at least northern hemispheric features to improve the poor representation of regional geomagnetic field variation with respect to the global model prediction more high fidelity paleointensity determinations are required in east asia

toward an optimal geomagnetic field intensity determination technique 1 paleointensity determinations based on double heating techniques in field zero field cooling zero field in field cooling and two in field steps with opposite laboratory fields are generally considered to be functionally interchangeable producing equally reliable paleointensity estimates to investigate this premise we have developed a simple mathematical model we find that both the zero field first and in field first methods have a strong angular dependence on the laboratory field parallel orthogonal and anti parallel while the two in field steps method is independent of the direction of the laboratory produced field contrary to common practice each method yields quite different outcomes if the condition of reciprocity of blocking and unblocking temperatures is not met even with marginal 10 tails of partial thermoremanence our calculations suggest that the zero field first method with the laboratory produced field anti parallel to the natural remanence nrm is the most robust paleointensity determination technique when the intensity of the lab induced field is smaller than ancient field however the zero field first method with the laboratory field parallel to the nrm is the optimum approach when the intensity of the lab induced field is larger than the ancient field by far the best approach however is to alternatethe infield zerofield iz steps with zerofield infield zi steps

changes in the intensity of the geomagnetic field a new more reliable technique has been used to determine the ancient intensity of the earth s magnetic field using samples of baked clay from eight sites in the eastern mediterranean the resultant power spectrum reveals a single strong component with a period of 1430 years the reproducibility of the results obtained with the new method also makes limited archaeomagnetic dating with a precision of between about one and two hundred years between 900 bc and ad 400 possible

paleomagnetic field intensity derived from non sd testing the thellier izzi technique on md slag and a new bootstrap procedure abstract experimental techniques to determine paleomagnetic field intensity are based on a theoretical framework that is valid only for single domain sd ferromagnetic particles yet most of the available materials exhibit distinctly non sd properties designing the optimal paleointensity methodology for non sd is therefore a fundamental challenge in paleomagnetism the objective of this study is to experimentally test the izzi thellier absolute paleointensity method on small md recorders the test has two purposes 1 to describe the characteristic non sd patterns occurring in arai plots and 2 to identify the optimal approach in interpreting non sd behavior we carried out paleointensity experiments on 40 specimens from 4 synthetic re melted slag samples with identical magnetic properties mineralogy texture and non sd state produced under different field intensities we ran three batches of izzi experiments using different conditions that allow for a detailed characterization of the non sd behavior we find that the curvature of the arai plot is systematically dependent on the angle and the proportion between the field used in the paleointensity experiment btrm and the field in which the nrm was acquired bnrm straight line arai plot occur when the two fields are parallel and equal and seems to always give the true slope convex curves occur when btrm is parallel and significantly stronger than bnrm concave curves occur in all the other cases and yield two end case slopes that are always different than the true slope in addition zigzagged patterns increase with the angle the proportion between btrm and bnrm we test the accuracy of the best fitting line approach and conclude that best fitting line in curved plots cannot provide robust paleointensity estimates yet the two end case slopes in concave curves provide adequate constraints for the true value we introduce a new procedure to calculate a 95 confidence interval of the paleointensity from curved plots using bootstrap statistics we substantiate the new procedure by conducting two independent tests the first uses synthetic re melted slag produced under known field intensities 3 sd samples and 4 non sd samples the second compares paleointensity determinations from archeological slag samples of the same age 34 sd samples and 10 non sd samples the two tests demonstrate that the bootstrap technique may be the optimal approach for non ideal dataset

the effect of remanence anisotropy on paleointensity estimates a case study from the archean stillwater complex paleomagnetism of archean rocks potentially provides information about the early development of the earth and of the geodynamo precambrian layered intrusive rocks are good candidates for paleomagnetic studies such complexes are commonly relatively unaltered and may contain some single domain magnetite armored by silicate mineral grains however layered intrusives often have a strong petrofabric that may result in a strong remanence anisotropy magnetic anisotropy can have particularly disastrous consequences for paleointensity experiments if the anisotropy is unrecognized and if its effects remain uncorrected here we examine the magnetic anisotropy of an anorthosite sample with a well developed magmatic foliation the effect of the sample s remanence fabric on paleointensity determinations is significant paleointensities estimated by the method of thellier and thellier range from 17 to 55 t for specimens magnetized in a field of 25 t we describe a technique based on the remanence anisotropy tensor to correct paleointensity estimates for the effects of magnetic fabric and use it to estimate a paleointensity for the stillwater complex mt usa of 32 t adjusted for the effects of slow cooling

decadal scale variations in geomagnetic field intensity from ancient cypriot slag mounds geomagnetic models based on direct observations since the 1830s show that the averaged relative change in field intensity on earth s surface over the past 170 years is less than 4 8 per decade it is unknown if these rates represent the typical behavior of secular variations due to insufficient temporal resolution of archaeomagnetic records from earlier periods to address this question we investigate two ancient slag mounds in cyprus skouriotissa vouppes su1 fourth to fifth centuries ce 21 m in height and mitsero kokkinoyia mk1 seventh to fifth centuries bce 8 m in height the mounds are multilayered sequences of slag and charcoals that accumulated near ancient copper production sites we modeled the age height relation of the mounds using radiocarbon dates and estimated paleointensities using thellier type izzi experiments with additional anisotropy cooling rate and nonlinear trm assessments to screen out ambiguous paleointensity interpretations we applied strict selection criteria at the specimen sample levels to ensure objectivity consistency and robust error estimation we employed an automatic interpretation technique and put the data available in the magic database the analyses yielded two independent subcentury scale paleointensity time series the mk1 data indicate relatively stable field at the time the mound accumulated in contrast the su1 data demonstrate changes that are comparable in magnitude to the fastest changes inferred from geomagnetic models we suggest that fast changes observed in the published archaeomagnetic data from the levant are driven by two longitudinally paired regions the middle east and south africa that show unusual activity in geomagnetic models

assessment of the usefulness of lithic clasts from pyroclastic deposits for paleointensity determination 1 paleomagnetic and rock magnetic measurements were carried out on lithic clasts found within pyroclastic deposits to assess their potential for paleointensity determinations the use of multiple lithologies in a single paleointensity determination would provide confidence that the result is not biased by alteration within one lithology lithic clasts were sampled from three historically active volcanoes lascar in the chilean andes mt st helens united states and vesuvius italy at lascar triple heating paleointensity experiments allow development of new selection criteria for lithic clasts found within pyroclastic deposits using these criteria the lascar data yield a mean paleointensity of 24 3 1 3 t 1 n 26 which agrees well with the expected value of 24 0 t this indicates that pyroclastic rocks have promise for paleointensity determinations pyroclastics however still suffer from the range of problems associated with conventional paleointensity experiments on lava flows samples from mt st helens are strongly affected by multidomain md behavior which results in all samples failing to pass the paleointensity selection criteria at vesuvius md grains magnetic interactions and chemical remanent magnetizations contributed to failure of all paleointensity experiments rock magnetic analyses allow identification of the causes of failure of the paleointensity experiments however in this study they have not provided adequate preselection criteria for identifying pyroclastics that are suitable for paleointensity determination

continuous geomagnetic field models for the past 7 millennia 2 cals7k 1 we present two continuous global geomagnetic field models for recent millennia cals3k 2 covering the past 3000 years and cals7k 2 covering 7000 years from 5000 bc to 1950 ad the models were determined by regularized least squares inversion of archeomagnetic and paleomagnetic data using spherical harmonics in space and cubic b splines in time they are derived from a greatly increased number of paleomagnetic directional data compared to previous efforts and for the first time a significant amount of archeointensity data is used in this kind of global model allowing the determination of evolution of geomagnetic dipole strength while data accuracy and dating uncertainties remain a limitation reliable low resolution global models can be obtained the results agree well with previous results from virtual axial dipole moment vadm studies from archeomagnetic intensity data apart from a systematic offset in strength a comparison of model predictions with the previous 3000 year model cals3k 1 gives general agreement but also some significant differences particularly for the early epochs the new models suggest that the prominent two northern hemisphere flux lobes are more stationary than cals3k 1 implied extending considerably the time span of stationary flux lobes observed in historical models between 5000 bc and 2000 bc there are time intervals of weak dipole moment where dipole power is exceeded by low degree nondipole power at the core mantle boundary model coefficients and evaluation code can be obtained from the earthref digital archive erda together with animations and snapshots plots for every 100 years at http www earthref org detailed urls for the different material are listed in appendix a

pore pressure embrittlement in a volcanic edifice the failure mode of porous rock in compression dilatant or compactant is largely governed by the overlying lithostatic pressure and the pressure of pore fluids within the rock wong solid earth 102 3009 3025 1997 both of which are subject to change in space and time within a volcanic edifice while lithostatic pressure will tend to increase monotonously with depth due to the progressive accumulation of erupted products pore pressures are prone to fluctuations during periods of volcanic unrest for example an increase in pore fluid pressure can result in rock fracture even at depths where the lithostatic pressure would otherwise preclude such dilatant behaviour a process termed pore fluid induced embrittlement we explore this phenomenon through a series of targeted triaxial experiments on typical edifice forming andesites from volcan de colima mexico we first show that increasing pore pressure over a range of timescales on the order of 1 min to 1 day can culminate in brittle failure of otherwise intact rock irrespective of the pore pressure increase rate we record comparable accelerations in acoustic emission and strain prior to macroscopic failure we further show that oscillating pore fluid pressures can cause iterative and cumulative damage ultimately resulting in brittle failure under relatively low effective mean stress conditions we find that macroscopic failure occurs once a critical threshold of damage is surpassed suggesting that only small increases in pore pressure may be necessary to trigger failure in previously damaged rocks finally we observe that inelastic compaction of volcanic rock as we may expect in much of the deep edifice can be overprinted by shear fractures due to this mechanism of embrittlement pore fluid induced embrittlement of edifice rock during volcanic unrest is anticipated to be highest closer to the conduit and as a result may assist in the development of a fractured halo zone surrounding the conduit potentially explaining commonly observed near conduit outgassing at many active volcanoes further rock embrittlement at depth may create transient outgassing pathways by linking fracture networks near the edifice to larger scale regional fault systems our experimental results affirm that pore pressure fluctuations associated with volcanic unrest may play a crucial role in dictating the evolution of a volcanic system

experimental and modeling study of fluid pressure driven fractures in darley dale sandstone 1 we report measurements of acoustic emissions ae generated during formation and growth of pressure driven fractures in cylindrical samples of darley dale sandstone that were co axially pre drilled in order to allow an internal pressure to be applied a set of 3 to 6 fractures initiate at the wall of the internal bore at a fluid pressure around three times that of the confining pressure but only 3 propagate to the outer wall of the sample time and spatial distributions of acoustic emissions show two distinct bursts of activity associated with initiation and propagation respectively a particle flow code pfc model has been used to reproduce the mechanics of fracture initiation and the time and spatial distributions of ae in both the experiments and the model we observe a distinct phase of accelerating ae activity preceding fracture formation

permeability control on magma fragmentation fragmentation of porous magma that is subject to gas overpressure is considered to be a crucial process in the generation of explosive volcanic eruptions a decompressive event e g rapid magma ascent landslide dome collapse disrupts the stress equilibrium between the gas phase and the surrounding melt when the gas in the pores is exposed to a pressure gradient it may either fragment the surrounding magma or escape from the magma along an existing pathway of cracks and interconnected bubbles therefore magma permeability can be a decisive parameter in determining if an eruption experiences fragmentation i e whether it is explosive or effusive or exhibits a temporal transition between the two eruptive styles despite the central role that gas permeability may play in the fragmentation of volcanic rocks previous studies have not experimentally verified or quantified this influence based on a comprehensive database of combined permeability and fragmentation experiments we show that high permeability substantially increases the overpressure required to fragment porous volcanic rocks our results allow us to deduce a fragmentation criterion that incorporates gas permeability as well as porosity and internal overpressure this criterion implies that the energy required for fragmentation is less dependent on the actual pore geometry than on the way the void space is interconnected and thus on the contribution of permeable gas flow to decompression

the effects of secondary mineral formation on coe type paleointensity determinations theory and simulation thellier type experiments are the most widely applied approaches for determining the absolute paleointensities of earth s magnetic field one major problem however is that specimens are prone to thermal alteration due to the intensive thermal treatment during experiments linear arai plots with acceptable partial thermal remanent magnetization ptrm checks have been considered as evidence for the absence of or negligible effects of thermal alteration and as reliable indicators of high quality paleointensity estimates however by simulating the coe variant of the thellier method on assemblages of single domain sd magnetite particles it is demonstrated that new magnetic minerals which form during thermal treatments can result in linear concave up or concave down arai plots depending on the magnetic properties of both the primary and secondary magnetic phases among this range of behavior pseudoideal arai plots which are linear with acceptable ptrm check statistics would lead to paleointensity underestimates it is further demonstrated that ptrm checks are proportional to the degree of underestimate with a magnetic granulometry dependency for sd particles due to the complexity of this dependency ptrm check statistics are only comparable when specimens have similar magnetic properties this suggests that a universal threshold for ptrm check statistics is not likely to be effective since the criteria of linearity and low ptrm check statistics are insufficient to guarantee the fidelity of the estimates auxiliary rock magnetic methods such as temperature dependent hysteresis parameters and anhysteretic remanent magnetization are highly recommended to identify the presence of alteration

early bronze age copper production systems in the northern arabah valley new insights from archaeomagnetic study of slag deposits in jordan and israel this paper presents results of an archaeomagnetic study of slag from four early bronze eb age copper production sites in the faynan copper ore district and the northern arabah valley modern israel and jordan the results provide age constraints for metallurgical activities at these sites together with previously published data they indicate copper production around ca 2900 cal bce eb ii iii transition and between ca 2600 1950 cal bce spanning the later part of the eb iii and the entire eb iv period these data strongly suggest a direct link between faynan and the old kingdom of egypt which is reflected in the most significant phase of copper production and trade in the northern arabah prior to the iron age and in a settlement wave in the negev highlands in addition the results indicate that during the late eb ii copper was smelted up to 40 km away from the mines this is evident at the unique cultic site of ashalim located on the main road between faynan southeast of the dead sea and the settled areas in the core of canaan

high intensity geomagnetic field spike observed at ca 3000 cal bp in texas usa abstract by observing the fluctuations in direction and intensity of the earth s magnetic field through time we increase our understanding of the fluid motions of the earth s outer core that sustain the geomagnetic field the geodynamo recent archaeomagnetic studies in the near east have found extremely rapid increases spikes in geomagnetic field intensity at ca 3000 yr cal bp these observations have proved problematic for our current understanding of core flow however until now these geomagnetic spikes had not been observed outside of the near east where they have been preserved in metallurgical slag and fired mud brick walls we present a new fully oriented geomagnetic secular variation and relative palaeointensity rpi record for the last 17 000 yr from hall s cave texas whose complete 3 8 m thick sedimentary sequence spans from the present to 16 850 110 rc yr bp modern to 20 600 cal bp within the stable cool climate of the cave pedogenic and bioturbation processes are negligible to non existent thereby limiting post depositional physical and geochemical alteration of the magnetic record the sub aerial and subterranean setting of the sedimentary sequence in hall s cave enabled us to collect oriented palaeomagnetic cubes from a previously excavated stratigraphic section the palaeomagnetic samples yielded high quality vectors an age model for the sequence determined using 15 ams 14c dates on individual bones from microvertebrates was combined with the palaeomagnetic data to construct a secular variation record the record is in broad agreement with predictions by holocene field models for the site s location however starting ca 3000 yr ago the rpi data indicate an almost four fold increase in geomagnetic field intensity lasting several hundred years this record presents well dated evidence obtained using conventional techniques for the existence of a geomagnetic intensity spike in north america that is contemporaneous with the shorter duration decadal scale spikes reported from the near east

on the conditions of sheet injections and eruptions in stratovolcanoes nearly all eruptions in stratovolcanoes composite volcanoes central volcanoes are supplied with magma through fractures consequently a primary physical condition for an eruption to occur in a stratovolcano is that a magma driven fracture is able to propagate to the surface magma filled fractures frozen or fluid are referred to as sheet intrusions more specifically they are named dykes when subvertical and inclined or cone sheets when inclined field observations indicate that most sheet intrusions do not reach the surface to feed eruptions but rather become arrested at various crustal depths for this reason periods of volcanic unrest with sheet injections are much more common than volcanic eruptions whether a sheet intrusion becomes arrested or alternatively propagates to the surface depends primarily on the stress field in the stratovolcano a stratovolcano normally consists of layers of contrasting mechanical properties such as soft low young s modulus pyroclastic units and stiff high young s modulus lava flows we present numerical models indicating that volcanoes composed of such layers commonly develop stress fields encouraging sheet and dyke arrest the models indicate that a necessary condition for a sheet intrusion to reach the surface and feed a volcanic eruption is that the stress field along the sheet pathway becomes homogenised we propose that much of the activity in a stratovolcano during a volcanic cycle encourages stress field homogenisation field studies show that the sheet intrusions in individual stratovolcanoes have various dips some are vertical dykes others inclined sheets and still others horizontal sills analytical models indicate that the dip of a sheet reaching the surface can have great effects on the magma transport during an eruption this effect is normally greater for a flat volcano such as a collapse caldera than for a stratovolcano that forms a topographic high we conclude that the shallower the dip of a sheet intrusion the less will be its volumetric magma transport to the surface of a stratovolcano

a paleointensity technique for multidomain igneous rocks 1 we developed a paleointensity technique to account for concave up arai diagrams due to multidomain md contributions to determine unbiased paleointensities for 24 trial samples from site ga x in pleistocene lavas from floreana island galapagos archipelago the main magnetization carrier is fine grained low titanium magnetite of variable grain size we used a comprehensive back zero forth bzf heating technique by adding an additional zero field heating between the thellier two opposite in field heating steps in order to estimate paleointensities in various standard protocols and provide internal self consistency checks after the first bzf experiment we gave each sample a total thermal remanent magnetization ttrm by cooling from the curie point in the presence of a low 15 t laboratory applied field then we repeated the bzf protocol with the laboratory applied ttrm as a synthetic natural remanent magnetization nrm using the same laboratory applied field and temperature steps to obtain the synthetic arai signatures which should only represent the domain state dependent properties of the samples we corrected the original arai diagrams from the first bzf experiment by using the arai signatures from the repeated bzf experiment which neutralizes the typical md concave up effect eleven samples meet the arai diagram post selection criteria and provide qualified paleointensity estimates with a mean value for site ga x of 4 23 1 29 t consistent with an excursional geomagnetic field direction reported for this site

large geomagnetic field anomalies revealed in bronze to iron age archeomagnetic data from tel megiddo and tel hazor israel abstract geomagnetic field measurements from the past few centuries show heightened secular variation activity in the southern hemisphere associated with the south atlantic anomaly saa it is uncertain whether geomagnetic anomalies at a similar scale have existed in the past owing to limited coverage and uncertainties in the paleomagnetic database here we provide new evidence from archaeological sources in the levant suggesting a large positive northern hemisphere anomaly similar in magnitude to the saa during the 9th 8th centuries bce called levantine iron age anomaly we also report an additional geomagnetic spike in the 8th century the new dataset comprises 73 high precision paleointensity estimates from ca 3000 bce to 732 bce and five directional measurements between the 14th and the 9th centuries bce well dated pottery and cooking ovens were collected from twenty archaeological strata in two large contemporaneous stratigraphical mounds tells in israel tel megiddo and tel hazor the new data are combined with previously published data and interpreted automatically using the pmagpy thellier gui program the tel megiddo and tel hazor data sets demonstrate excellent internal consistency and remarkable agreement with published data from mesopotamia syria the data illustrate the evolution of an extreme geomagnetic high that culminated in at least two spikes between the 11th and the 8th centuries bce iron age in the levant the paleomagnetic directional data of the 9th century bce show positive inclination anomalies and deviations of up to 22 from the averaged geocentric axial dipole gad direction from comparison of the levantine archaeomagnetic data with igrf model for 2015 we infer the levantine iron age anomaly between the 10th and the 8th centuries bce is a local positive anomaly the eastward extent of the anomaly is currently unknown

nonlinear thermoremanence acquisition and implications for paleointensity data abstract in paleointensity studies thermoremanence is generally regarded as a linear function of ambient magnetic field at low fields comparable to that of the present day earth we find pronounced nonlinearity at low fields for a class of materials with silicate hosted magnetite that otherwise perform well in paleointensity experiments we model this nonlinearity with narrow size ranges of large acicular single domain grains which are most likely in a vortex state i e nonuniformly magnetized sometimes labeled pseudosingle domain simple trm theory predicts that even certain single domain particles will also exhibit a nonlinear response saturating in fields as low as the earth s such behavior although likely to be rare may bias some paleointensity estimates the bias is especially pronounced when the laboratory field is higher than the ancient field fortunately the fundamental assumption that thermoremanence is proportional to applied field can and should be routinely checked at the end of successful paleointensity experiments by adding two extra heating steps

small scale structure of the geodynamo inferred from oersted and magsat satellite data the geodynamo in the earth s liquid outer core produces a magnetic field that dominates the large and medium length scales of the magnetic field observed at the earth s surface1 2 here we use data from the currently operating danish oersted3 satellite and from the us magsat2 satellite that operated in 1979 80 to identify and interpret variations in the magnetic field over the past 20 years down to length scales previously inaccessible projected down to the surface of the earth s core we found these variations to be small below the pacific ocean and large at polar latitudes and in a region centred below southern africa the flow pattern at the surface of the core that we calculate to account for these changes is characterized by a westward flow concentrated in retrograde polar vortices and an asymmetric ring where prograde vortices are correlated with highs and retrograde vortices with lows in the historical 400 year average magnetic field4 5 this pattern is analogous to those seen in a large class of numerical dynamo simulations6 except for its longitudinal asymmetry if this asymmetric state was reached often in the past it might account for several persistent patterns observed in the palaeomagnetic field7 8 9 10 we postulate that it might also be a state in which the geodynamo operates before reversing

application of copper slag in geomagnetic archaeointensity research 1 paleointensity and archaeointensity studies since the 1950s have produced numerous geomagnetic intensity data for the last seven millennia as a consequence of different experiments and materials there is a complex and internally inconsistent picture of the geomagnetic field behavior in this study we present data using a recently developed experimental design on a heretofore unexploited recording medium copper slag deposits our results based on hundreds of specimens from various archaeometallurgical sites of the southern levant demonstrate the applicability of copper slag material for archaeointensity studies in addition to frequently exhibiting good experimental behavior slag has further advantages such as dense multilayer deposits and in cases embedded charcoals which open the door to data sets with excellent age control and resolution the data presented here augment the high quality database from the middle east and support previously observed periods of rapid change of the intensity of the geomagnetic field

intraplate volcanism originating from upwelling hydrous mantle transition zone most magmatism occurring on earth is conventionally attributed to passive mantle upwelling at mid ocean ridges to slab devolatilization at subduction zones or to mantle plumes however the widespread cenozoic intraplate volcanism in northeast china1 3 and the young petit spot volcanoes4 7 offshore of the japan trench cannot readily be associated with any of these mechanisms in addition the mantle beneath these types of volcanism is characterized by zones of anomalously low seismic velocity above and below the transition zone8 12 a mantle level located at depths between 410 and 660 kilometres a comprehensive interpretation of these phenomena is lacking here we show that most or possibly all of the intraplate and petit spot volcanism and low velocity zones around the japanese subduction zone can be explained by the cenozoic interaction of the subducting pacific slab with a hydrous mantle transition zone numerical modelling indicates that 0 2 to 0 3 weight per cent of water dissolved in mantle minerals that are driven out from the transition zone in response to subduction and retreat of a tectonic plate is sufficient to reproduce the observations this suggests that a critical amount of water may have accumulated in the transition zone around this subduction zone as well as in others of the tethyan tectonic belt13 that are characterized by intraplate or petit spot volcanism and low velocity zones in the underlying mantle the widespread intraplate volcanism in northeast china and the unusual petit spot volcanoes offshore japan could have resulted from the interaction of the subducting pacific slab with a hydrous mantle transition zone

archaeomagnetic study of five mounds from upper mesopotamia between 2500 and 700 bce further evidence for an extremely strong geomagnetic field ca 3000 years ago the distribution of archaeomagnetic data in eastern europe and the near and middle east shows a remarkable gap in turkey this study presents the first archaeomagnetic results from five different mounds in southeast turkey the northern part of mesopotamia the rock magnetic experiments indicate that in the majority of the samples the dominant magnetic carrier is magnetite which is stable to heating to temperatures of 700 1c in general the demagnetization diagrams are single component and all five sets display well defined characteristic magnetizations and clustered directions for the period between 2500 and 700 bce the declinations are between 3501 and 201 while inclinations are in the range of 49 641 the directional results are compared with the global geomagnetic field models cals7k 2 arch3k cst 1 and cals3k 4 and the data from the archaeomagnetic database geomagia50v2 the results are coherent with both the data and the models except for two nearcontemporaneous sets dating 2000 bce which are offset to the east by more than 201 with respect to cals7k 2 archaeointensity measurements were made using the microwave and conventional thermal thellier methods applied to five sets of samples four furnaces and a mud brick wall these yielded comparable and intriguing results while those from the furnaces are slightly higher than the cals7k 2 model and in agreement with the geomagia50v2 and the middle east data the results from the mud brick wall suggest a high intensity of 100 8 mt 17 7 10 22 am 2 a t 1000 bce this result is

on the possible occurrence of archaeomagnetic jerks in the geomagnetic field over the past three millennia abstract archaeomagnetism can provide a high resolution full vector description of the earth s magnetic field for the past several thousand years we analyse the bulk of archaeomagnetic data both direction and intensity obtained recently in western europe and the eastern mediterranean covering the past three millennia we demonstrate a remarkable coincidence between sharp cusps in geomagnetic field direction and intensity maxima two clear ones at ad 200 and 1400 two presently less well constrained at 800 bc and ad 800 these sharp changes may constitute a new feature of geomagnetic secular variation archaeomagnetic jerks with time characteristics intermediate between geomagnetic jerks and magnetic excursions

extreme geomagnetic field variability indicated by eastern mediterranean full vector archaeomagnetic records the magnetic field of the earth can exhibit considerable variations at short time scales even as short as decades the archaeomagnetic studies of middle eastern artefacts mainly from israel and jordan show evidence for an exceptionally high intensity period from 1050 700 bc which displays two distinct spikes over the levant the levantine iron age anomaly liaa its exact duration and geographical extent are still poorly known despite the wealth of ancient settlements the extensive cultural heritage and a long history of trade and immigration the archaeomagnetism of turkey and cyprus remains largely unexplored this study presents a large data set of ancient directions and intensities from seven archaeological sites in the eastern mediterranean covering a time span of 2000 yrs the recorded directions from thirteen sets of samples are coherent with our earlier findings yet show significantly larger swings than existing field models in particular we confirm the very large swing in inclination we found earlier from 1910 1850 bc that is also captured by the greek psv curve and shallower by more than 10 than predicted by existing field models consequently these models require substantial revision in this region we were able to determine the archaeointensity from five sets of mud bricks from the thirteen attempted allowing us to provide the full field vector furthermore we present thirty one new archaeointensity results from potsherds and mud bricks that considerably enhance existing data especially when a set of strict selection criteria is applied fourteen sets of potsherds from a single site tell atchana provide the longest sequence recorded so far in turkey from 2100 to 1350 bc we find exceptionally high intensities of 145 and 175 zam2 around 700 bc in well dated mud bricks and potsherds from two different locations tell tayinat and kilise tepe supporting extreme geomagnetic field variability in the region moreover these two high intensities confirm the younger spike of the liaa in turkey

possible impact of the earth s magnetic field on the history of ancient civilizations we report new archeointensity results from iranian and syrian archeological excavations dated from the second millennium bc these high temperature magnetization data were obtained using a laboratory built triaxial vibrating sample magnetometer together with our previously published archeointensity results from mesopotamia we constructed a rather detailed geomagnetic field intensity variation curve for this region from 3000 bc to 0 bc four potential geomagnetic events archeomagnetic jerks marked by strong intensity increases are observed and appear to be synchronous with cooling episodes in the north atlantic this temporal coincidence strengthens the recent suggestion that the geomagnetic field influences climate change over multi decadal time scales possibly through the modulation of cosmic ray flux interacting with the atmosphere moreover the cooling periods in the north atlantic coincide with episodes of enhanced aridity in the middle east when abrupt societal changes occurred in the eastern mediterranean and mesopotamia although the coincidences discussed in this paper must be considered with caution they lead to the possibility that the geomagnetic field impacted the history of ancient civilizations through climatically driven environmental changes triggering economic social and political instability

solar activity reconstructed over the last 7000 years the influence of geomagnetic field changes 1 the long term solar activity as manifested by sunspot number has been recently reconstructed on multi millennium time scales by s k solanki et al 2004 from the measured concentration of 14 c in tree rings the exact level of the reconstructed solar activity depends however on independently evaluated data of the geomagnetic dipole strength variations recently a new series of the palaeomagnetic dipole moment reconstruction for the last 7000 years has been presented by m korte and c g constable 2005a on the basis of a thorough analysis of global samples the new palaeomagnetic series yields a systematically lower dipole moment in the past compared to the earlier geomagnetic reconstructions we have revised the earlier sunspot activity reconstruction since 5000 bc using the new geomagnetic data series and found that it is roughly consistent with the previous results during most of the period although the revised sunspot number values are in general higher nonetheless it is confirmed with the new palaeomagnetic series that the sun spends only 2 3 of the time in a state of high activity similar to the modem episode this strengthens the conclusion that the modem high activity level is very unusual during the last 7000 years

insights on the geomagnetic secular variation in the eastern mediterranean first directional data from cyprus abstract the first directional archaeomagnetic results from cyprus are presented based on the study of seven baked clay structures excavated at the copper smelting site of agia varvara almyras situated some 20 km south of nicosia this ancient copper working site represents a unique example of complete primary production of the copper metal in cyprus in total five furnaces one ore roasting pit and an oven were sampled in situ for an archaeomagnetic investigation all the studied structures are well dated based on pottery finds and radiocarbon dates with ages ranging from 600 bce to 50 bce several rock magnetic experiments were performed to determine the main magnetic carrier and to investigate the thermal stability of the studied material the direction of the characteristic remanent magnetization chrm for each structure has been determined by demagnetization of 7 15 specimens in alternating magnetic fields up to 100 120 mt mean directions were calculated assuming a fisherian distribution and are well defined for five out of the seven structures studied the new directions are compared with the directional data and the secular variation curves available from the surrounding area and with the predictions of global geomagnetic field models they are an important contribution to improving our knowledge of the geomagnetic field variations in the eastern mediterranean and offer new insights about fast geomagnetic directional changes during the first millennium bce that were not previously identified by the available geomagnetic field models predictions in this area

core flow constraints on extreme archeomagnetic intensity changes abstract recent studies ben yosef et al 2009 shaar et al 2011 propose extreme archeomagnetic intensity changes termed spikes in the range 4 5 t year c a 1000 bc in the near east around 40 to 50 times larger than values typical of the present day in order to investigate whether such extreme changes are consistent with a model of the source region of the magnetic field namely the fluid flow at the surface of earth s core we construct upper bounds for instantaneous magnetic intensity change at an arbitrary site on the earth s surface these bounds are constrained by the amount of kinetic energy available to sustain the change taken here to be a prescribed value for the root mean squared surface velocity of 13 km yr as inferred from the current state of the core further we focus attention on two end members of optimised core surface flow structure unrestricted and purely toroidal as the derivation of the bounds demands complete knowledge of the geomagnetic field at the core surface we model the unknown field by means of a monte carlo approach extending to high degree the chaos 4 epoch 2010 ad and cals10k1 b epoch 1000 bc geomagnetic field models using 2000 realisations for each family of stochastic field models we find that optimised core flows are always large scale and that they tend to generate a non dipole quadrupole dominated secular variation at the earth s surface the dependence of the upper bounds as a function of site location reflects the large scale structure of the intensity itself stronger field permits more rapid change for the site in the near east purely toroidal flows have upper bounds of approximately 0 62 0 02 t year whereas unrestricted flows increase this bound to 1 20 0 02 t year we favour the former as more geophysically sound on the account of a large body of previous results from core surface flow inversions and consistency with the existence of a stratified layer at the top of the core even if we allow for a generous threefold increase in the prescribed rms velocity and a concomitant threefold increase in the bound we conclude that the reported occurrences of extreme intensity changes as suggested in the near east are not compatible with the commonly accepted structure of core surface flow however it may be that an explanation for spikes lies beyond our current perception of core dynamics and future work would be further motivated by seeking corroborative evidence of rapid intensity change from sites elsewhere on earth s surface we therefore also discuss the form that the secular variation would take in the case of simultanenous archeomagnetic spikes

geomagnetic intensity variations for the past 8 kyr new archaeointensity results from eastern china abstract in this study we have carried out paleointensity experiments on 918 specimens spanning the last 7 kyr including pottery fragments baked clay and slag collected from shandong liaoning zhejiang and hebei provinces in china approximately half of the specimens yielded results that passed strict data selection criteria and give high fidelity paleointensities the virtual axial dipole moments vadms of our sites range from 2 10 22 to 13 10 22 am 2 at 2250 bce our results suggest a paleointensity low of 2 10 22 am 2 which increases to a high of 13 10 22 am 2 by 1300 bce this rapid less than 1000 yrs six fold change in the paleointensity may have important implications for the dynamics of core flow at this time our data from the last 3 kyr are generally in good agreement with the arch3k 1 model but deviate significantly at certain time periods from the cals3k 4 and cals10k 1b model which is likely due to differences in the data used to constrain these models at ages older than 3 ka where only the cals10k 1b model is available for comparison our data deviate significantly from the model combining our new results with the published data from china and japan we provide greatly improved constraints for the regional model of eastern asia when comparing the variations of geomagnetic field in three global representative areas of eastern asia the middle east and southern europe a common general trend of sinusoidal variations since 8 ka is shown likely dominated by the dipole component however significant disparities are revealed as well which we attribute to non dipolar components caused by movement of magnetic flux patches at the core mantle boundary

detecting multidomain magnetic grains in thellier palaeointensity experiments the thellier technique is the most commonly used method for absolute palaeointensity studies it is based on thellier s laws stating that partial thermoremanent magnetisations ptrms are independent and additive which however only are true for non interacting single domain sd grains for multidomain md grains individual ptrms are not independent and thellier palaeointensity experiments on rocks with a significant proportion of md grains may therefore lead to erroneous palaeofield estimates by introducing a ptrm tail check in the coe version of the thellier technique j geophys res 72 1967 3247 we present a simple method to detect and discard such rocks the usefulness of the ptrm tail check is exemplified by thellier palaeointensity experiments performed on two palaeomagnetic sample collections with different magnetomineralogy miocene baked sediments from french massif central are shown to be ideal for thellier studies with the remanent magnetisation residing in thermally stable sd grains for palaeocene eocene basaltic lavas from faeroe islands 64 of otherwise acceptable palaeointensity estimates are discarded due to the failure of ptrm tail checks indicating the presence of significant concentrations of md grains 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

brittle ductile deformation and tensile rupture of dome lava during inflation at santiaguito guatemala gas and ash explosions at the santiaguito dome complex guatemala commonly occur through arcuate fractures following a 5 to 6 min period of inflation observed in long period seismic signals observation of active faults across the dome suggests a strong shear component but as fault propagation generally proceeds through the coalescence of tensile fractures we surmise that explosive eruptions require tensile rupture here we assess the effects of temperature and strain rate on fracture propagation and the tensile strength of santiaguito dome lavas indirect tensile tests were conducted on samples with a porosity range of 3 30 and over diametral displacement rates of 0 04 0 004 and 0 0004 mm s at room temperature the tensile strength of dome rock is rate independent within the range tested and inversely proportional to the porosity of the material at eruptive temperatures we observe an increasingly ductile response at either higher temperature or lower displacement rate where ductile deformation is manifest by a reduction in loading rate during constant deformation rate tests resulting in slow tearing viscous flow and pervasive damage we propose a method to conduct indirect tensile tests under volcanic conditions using a modification of the brazilian disc testing protocol and use brittleness indices to classify deformation modes across the brittle ductile transition we show that a degree of ductile damage is inevitable in the lava core during explosions at the santiaguito dome complex and discuss how strain leading to rupture controls fracture geometry which would impact gas pressure release or buildup and regulate explosive activity

deformation monitoring at mount st helens in 1981 and 1982 for several weeks before each eruption of mount st helens in 1981 and 1982 viscous magma rising in the feeder conduit inflated the lava dome and shoved the crater floor laterally against the immobile crater walls producing ground cracks and thrust faults the rates of deformation accelerated before eruptions and thus it was possible to predict eruptions 3 to 19 days in advance lack of deformation outside the crater showed that intrusion of magma during 1981 and 1982 was not voluminous

geomagnetic field variations in western europe from 1500 bc to 200 ad part ii new intensity secular variation curve abstract in order to extend the secular variation curve svc of archaeointensity in western europe to the first millennium bc we studied 24 kilns and hearths in place two displaced hearths and six sets of pottery sherds from french archaeological sites archaeological artefacts radiocarbon and dendrochronology dated the acquisition of the thermoremanent magnetization trm carried by the studied objects rock magnetism experiments suggest that the main carrier of the magnetization is a ti poor titanomagnetite archaeointensity was determined by the thellier thellier classical protocol with ptrm checks a strict criteria set was applied to select only the most reliable results with linear nrm trm diagrams 55 of total specimens this study demonstrates that pottery sherds with two trms give reliable archaeointensities in the low temperature interval if the nrm trm diagram is adequately adjusted eighteen new mean archaeointensities 14 corrected from the anisotropy of trm and 16 from cooling rate were computed the comparison with previously published western europe paleointensities show a strong dispersion between data primarily due to their variable quality western europe data were weighted following the archaeointensity protocol the number of specimens per site and the type of studied materials in order to better highlight the secular variation of archaeointensity during the first millennium bc the svc built with sliding windows of 160 years shifted every 50 years presents at paris a maximum of 90 t around 800 bc and a minimum of 60 t around 250 bc these archaeointensity maximum and minimum correspond to cusps of the geomagnetic field direction in western europe this new curve is consistent with mesopotamian and eastern europe data the archaeointensity secular variation in western europe predicted by global geomagnetic models cals3k 4 arch3k 1 and arch3k cst 1 is smoother than our svc we used our directional dataset herve et al 2013 to build a new western europe vgps and vdms mean curves comparison with the predictions given by the global models points out a possible persistent non dipole fields effect over europe between 1000 bc and 600 500 bc finally we note that the strong variations of intensity of the geomagnetic field with a mean decrease rate per century close to 6 t will be useful for archaeomagnetic dating purposes

the secular variation of the geomagnetic field in egypt in the last 5000 years the palaeo intensities fa of the geomagnetic field in egypt at some ages are determined by archaeomagnetic measurements and found to be fa 36 2 t at 3100 b c fa 46 8 t at 3000 b c fa 36 5 t at 2780 b c 49 0 t at 2500 b c 36 4 t at 2200 b c 57 5 t at 1990 b c 62 1 t atca 1400 b c 61 5 t at 1400 b c 69 9 t at 600 b c 59 3 t at 550 b c 79 9 t at 460 b c 73 7 t at 450 b c 69 7 t at 320 b c 56 2 t at a d 50 64 9 t at a d 400 54 4 t at a d 300 57 5 t at a d 700 and 43 0 t at a d 1975

continuous geomagnetic field models for the past 7 millennia 1 a new global data compilation 1 a global data set of archeomagnetic and paleomagnetic data covering the past 7000 years has been compiled it consists of 16 085 results of inclination 13 080 of declination and 3188 of intensity for the time span 5000 bc to 1950 ad declination and inclination data come partly from existing databases and partly from original literature a new global compilation of intensity data for the millennial scale is included data and dating uncertainties are discussed as we attempted to obtain an internally coherent data set the global distribution of the data is very inhomogeneous in both time and space all the data are compared to predictions from the previous 3000 year global model cals3k 1 this collection of data will be useful for global secular variation studies and geomagnetic field modeling although southern hemisphere data are still underrepresented in particular we will use it in a further study to update and extend the existing global model cals3k 1 the huge increase in data compared to the previous compilation will result in significant changes from current models as we might have missed some suitable data we encourage the reader to notify us about any data that have not been included yet and might fit in as improving our global millennial scale models remains our aim for the future the data files described in this paper are available from the earthref digital archive erda at http earthref org cgi bin erda cgi n 331

high temperature archeointensity measurements from mesopotamia we present new archeointensity results obtained from 127 potsherds and baked brick fragments dated from the last four millennia bc which were collected from different syrian archeological excavations high temperature magnetization measurements were carried out using a laboratory built triaxial vibrating sample magnetometer triaxe and ancient field intensity determinations were derived from the experimental procedure described by le goff and gallet le goff and gallet earth planet sci lett 229 2004 31 43 as some of the studied samples were previously analyzed using the classical thellier and thellier thellier and thellier ann geophys 15 1959 285 376 method revised by coe coe j geophys res 72 1967 3247 3262 a comparison of the results is made from the two methods the differences both at the fragment and site levels are mostly within 5 which strengthens the validity of the experimental procedure developed for the triaxe the new data help to better constrain the geomagnetic field intensity variations in mesopotamia during archeological times with the probable occurrence of an archeomagnetic jerk around 2800 2600 bc

strength of the geomagnetic field in the cretaceous normal superchron new data from submarine basaltic glass of the troodos ophiolite 1 we present here new paleointensity data from 39 sampling sites collected from the quenched margins of pillow lavas and dikes exposed within the troodos ophiolite similar to 92 ma formed during the cretaceous normal superchron cns a period of approximately 40 million years when the geomagnetic field reversed extremely infrequently if at all monte carlo simulations suggest that a minimum of 25 estimates are necessary for a reasonably robust estimate for the average field strength our data suggest a dipole strength equivalent to the present field or nearly twice the post cns average the mean and standard deviation of the dipole moment 81 43 zam 2 z 10 21 from the 57 data points compiled here agree remarkably well with those predicted from the long paleointensity record derived from dsdp site 522 the new data set for the cns suggests a picture of a strong and stable field during the period of time when it stopped reversing moreover the similarity of the cns data with the present geomagnetic field suggests that it is presently in a state of unusual polarity stability

paleomagnetic field properties at high southern latitude 1 statistical analyses of paleomagnetic data from lava flows are used to study geomagnetic field behavior on million year timescales previous paleomagnetic studies have lacked high latitude measurements necessary to investigate the persistence of geomagnetic anomalies observed in the recent and historical field and replicated in some numerical geodynamo simulations these simulations suggest that reduced convective flow inside the tangent cylinder may affect the magnetic field at high latitude whereas lower latitude observations are expressions of columnar helical flow outside the tangent cylinder this paper presents new paleointensity and paleodirectional data from 100 volcanic sites in the erebus volcanic province evp antarctica and 21 new age determinations by the 40ar 39ar incremental heating method the new evp data are combined with previously published paleomagnetic and geochronological results providing 133 sites 91 having radioisotopic dates modified thellier thellier paleointensity estimates are reported for 47 sites 37 have dates ages for the combined data set span 0 03 to 13 42 ma the 125 high quality evp directional data selected from the merged data set have a non fisherian distribution and a mean direction with an inclination anomaly of 3 but 95 confidence limits include the prediction from a geocentric axial dipole virtual geomagnetic pole vgp dispersions for brunhes matuyama and the combined 0 5 ma data set are consistently high compared with values from middle to low latitude regions regardless of the criterion used to determine transitional fields with vgp latitude cut off at 45 the dispersion 23 9 2 1 for the combined 0 5 ma evp data set is consistent with earlier high latitude data and paleosecular variation psv in model g but not with some more recent statistical psv models mean evp paleointensity of 31 5 2 4 t derived from 41 high quality sites is about half the current value at mcmurdo 63 t the result is essentially independent of data selection criteria high vgp dispersion and low intensity values support the global observation of anticorrelation between directional variability and field strength simulations of time varying dipole strength show that uneven temporal sampling may bias the mean evp intensity estimate but the possibility of persistently anomalous field behavior at high latitude cannot be excluded

a new approach for geomagnetic archaeointensity research insights on ancient metallurgy in the southern levant we present results from an archaeointensity investigation based on a relatively unexploited recording medium copper slag deposits together with a recently improved experimental design for the archaeointensity experiment we demonstrate the applicability of this medium as well as other archaeometallurgical artifacts for the study of the ancient geomagnetic field intensity in addition to archaeointensity data from well dated archaeological contexts we obtained reliable archaeointensity results from poorly dated or contentious archaeometallurgical sites in the southern levant these results shed new light on the dating of these sites among them the copper smelting installation of timna 39b a site that has important implications for the beginning of metallurgy during the fifth millennium bce the paper also aims to introduce archaeointensity research to the archaeologist scholar and to encourage further collaboration between the disciplines in future research

laboratory simulations of tensile fracture development in a volcanic conduit via cyclic magma pressurisation during volcanic unrest high magma pressure induces cracking and faulting of the country rock providing conduits for the transport of magma and other fluids these conduits known as dykes are fundamental structures for the transport of magma to the surface in volcanically active regions the mechanics of dyke propagation is not yet fully understood but is crucial to better model dyke emplacement and eruption in volcanoes central to this need is a greater understanding of the mechanical properties of the magma country rock interaction as a function of known magmatic pressure temperature and stress here we report data from a series of experiments in which we cyclically compress viscoelastic rhyolitic magma at 828 c 892 c and 918 c inside a cylindrical conduit like shell of basalt from mt etna italy until fracture occurs the compression is performed under strain rates cyclically varying between 5 10 6 and 5 10 5 s 1 the resultant monitored axial loading and relaxation illustrates how the presence of a visco elastic fluid magma controls the stress induced at the conduit margin boundary this is achieved by analysing the viscoelastic relaxation through time to calculate an apparent modulus which is found to decrease with both increasing temperature and time in the 4 cycles before failure we find that the apparent modulus decreases from 180 to 40 gpa 80 to 20 gpa and 8 to 1 gpa for imposed stress cycles at 828 c 892 c and 918 c respectively we theoretically estimate a tensile strength at failure of approximately 7 11 mpa consistent with recent field data and in agreement with a model derived from the sample geometry and basic material parameters post experimental neutron computed tomography and microscopic analyses further reveal the fragmentation of the melt and generation of tuffisite veins inside the conduit due to spontaneous crack nucleation associated with conduit wall fracture the geometry of the rupture area inside the melt is akin to a mach cone associated with supershear fractures we discuss our findings in terms of magma rock interaction leading to dykes tuffisite veins and magma fragmentation

archaeomagnetic and rock magnetic study of six kilns from north africa tunisia and morocco new full vector archaeomagnetic data for north africa recovered from the study of six kilns five from tunisia and one from morocco are presented archaeological and historical considerations along with three radiocarbon dates indicate that the age of the kilns ranges between the 9th and 15th centuries ad rock magnetic analyses showed that the principal magnetic carriers are magnetite and low ti titanomagnetite along with variable contributions of thermally stable maghemite and a high coercivity phase with low unblocking temperatures the magnetic mineralogy of the studied material is thermally stable and behaves ideally during archaeointensity experiments stepwise alternating field demagnetization isolated a single stable characteristic remanence component with very well defined directions at both specimen and structure levels mean archaeointensities have been obtained from successful classical thellier experiments conducted on between five and eight independent samples per kiln thermoremanent magnetization trm anisotropy and cooling rate effects upon trm intensity have been investigated the results showed that these effects are low for four of the six studied kilns with differences between the uncorrected and corrected means of less than 3 per cent for the other two structures differences between the uncorrected and corrected mean site intensities are 4 4 per cent and 5 8 per cent these results highlight the necessity for trm anisotropy and cooling rate corrections in archaeomagnetic studies if accurate archaeointensities are to be obtained the new results suggest that high intensities occurred in northwest africa during the 9th century although more data are clearly needed to define this period of high intensity the results are in agreement with the available european archaeointensity data acomparison between the newdata other available archaeomagnetic determinations in nearby locations and palaeosecular variation psv curves derived from the regional scha dif 3k and global arch3k 1 geomagnetic field models shows good agreement between the new data and directional results derived from the models however some differences are observed between geomagnetic field models intensity results and available archaeointensity data for the studied regions this highlights the need for new data for unexplored regions such as north africa the new data presented here better constrains the evolution of the geomagnetic field during historical times in this region they represent a new step towards the construction of a reference psv curve for northwest africa once established this curve will represent a new dating method for this region

effects of wall rock elasticity on magma flow in dykes during explosive eruptions abstract magma flow during explosive volcanic eruptions has been described assuming rigid conduits with simple cylindrical or planar geometries here we study the dynamics of explosive volcanic flows to take account of the role of elastic deformation of the conduit influenced by local magmatic pressure three cases are investigated a dyke with elliptical cross section a cylindrical conduit and a deep dyke connected to a shallow cylinder the model cpiuc macedonio et al 2005 was used for simulations and generalized to account for elastic deformations of the conduit cross section area due to magmatic overpressure fragmentation level is typically deeper in a dyke than in a cylinder for flows in wide dykes pressure at the fragmentation depth can be lower than the surrounding lithostatic pressure by several tens of mpa indicating that the wall rocks of the dyke will be unstable constraining the dyke width and eventually blocking the eruption on the other hand when the fragmentation level is shallow the corresponding lithostatic pressure is not large enough to close the dyke and eruptions from wide dykes are possible the behaviour changes drastically when we assume the conduit is a dyke at depth that evolves to a cylinder near the surface in this case even very wide dykes can be stable because the fragmentation level moves into the cylindrical region where deformation is negligible

volcanic dilemma flow or blow volcanic eruptions can be either slow outpourings of lava or explosive ejections of fragmented rock in his perspective dingwell discusses the physical and chemical properties of magma that lead to these two styles of eruption new experiments and computer simulations are pointing to the involvement of solidlike behavior of liquid magma when it makes a transition to a glass

eight thousand years of geomagnetic field intensity variations in the eastern mediterranean 1 twenty new intensity determinations of the ancient geomagnetic field have been obtained from groups of potsherds and brick fragments from syria these artifacts archeologically well dated from 6000 b c to approximately a d 1200 have been analyzed using the thellier and thellier 1959 method as modified by coe 1967 intensity values have been corrected for the effects of anisotropy of thermal remanent magnetization and cooling rate our results indicate that field intensities were moderate in syria from 6000 b c to 3500 b c with values of 30 40 t there was a significant increase in intensity by a factor of 2 from 3500 b c to 700 b c which was interrupted by a moderate decrease between 2550 b c and 1750 b c during more recent periods our results show an intensity minimum approximately a d 200 and a maximum around the tenth century comparison with different data sets from the eastern mediterranean and central asia shows that geomagnetic field intensity variations were consistent at this large regional scale at least over the last 5 millennia

physical interpretation of hysteresis loops micromagnetic modeling of fine particle magnetite 1 hysteresis measurements have become an important part of characterizing magnetic behavior of rocks in paleomagnetic studies theoretical interpretation is often difficult owing to the complexity of mineral magnetism and published data sets demonstrate remanence and coercivity behavior that is currently unexplained in the last decade numerical micromagnetic modeling has been used to simulate magnetic particles such simulations reveal the existence of nonuniform remanent states between single and multidomain known as the flower and vortex configurations these suggest plausible explanations for many hysteresis measurements yet fall short of explaining high saturation remanence high coercivity data such as those commonly observed in fine grained submarine basalts in this paper we review the theoretical and experimental progress to date in understanding hysteresis of geological materials we extend numerical simulations to a greater variety of shapes and sizes including random assemblages of particles and shapes more complex than simple rods and cubes our simulations provide plausible explanations for a wide range of hysteresis behavior

grain size characteristics of experimental pyroclasts of 1980 mount st helens cryptodome dacite effects of pressure drop and temperature using the fragmentation bomb we analysed the effects of temperature and pressure drop on the grain size characteristics of experimentally produced pyroclasts experiments performed on vesicular samples of grey dacite of the 1980 mount st helens cryptodome at t 20 900 c and initial pressure differential up to 18 5 mpa provide clear evidence of the influence of these physical conditions upon fragment size and character cylindrical dacite samples diameter 17 mm length 50 mm are placed in the high pressure temperature section of the apparatus heated and saturated by argon gas the disruption of a diaphragm located between the high and low pressure sections of the apparatus initiates the rapid depressurisation of the sample the main results may be summarised as follows 1 increasing tempera ture from 20 to 900 c results in a decrease in the fragmentation threshold value from 9 to 3 mpa and an increase in the median diameter of the experimental pyroclasts these observations imply a decrease in the dynamic tensile strength of dacite at higher temperatures which in turn influences the characteristic size of fragments 2 increasing initial pressure differential yields a decrease of the median diameter thus a higher initial elastic potential energy in the magma generates a higher degree of fragmentation 3 fragments of angular shape are observed from experiments at all investigated temperatures 20 900 c including thereby temperatures significantly higher than the classical dilatometrically or calorimetrically determined glass transition temperature determined for this dacite of 810 c thus brittle response of the dacite is observed under rapid decom pression 4 fragment size distributions do not corre spond to log normal distributions and are more closely described by rosin rammler distributions with a de crease of temperature and increase of the initial pressure differential fragment size distributions approach a rosin rammler distribution dependence 5 microscopic and grain size comparison of particle characteristics of ex perimental and natural fragments of the 1980 mount st helens cryptodome dacite demonstrate similar median diameters and shapes

globally strong geomagnetic field intensity circa 3000 years ago abstract high fidelity geomagnetic field intensity determination was carried out using 191 baked fragments collected from 20 kilns or hearths with ages ranging between 1200 bc and ad 1725 in south korea geomagnetic field intensity variation displayed three narrow minima at 800 700 bc ad 700 and ad 1600 and two maxima at 1200 1100 bc and ad 1000 1100 in most time intervals virtual axial dipole moment vadm variation is confined within 20 of the present vadm however geomagnetic field intensity circa 3000 yr ago is nearly 40 larger than the present value such high vadms circa 3000 yr ago are in phase with those in other longitudinal bands in northern hemisphere centered at 5e france 30e the middle east and 200e hawaii although strong geomagnetic field intensity circa 3000 yr ago is globally synchronous the highest vadm occurs at slightly different time intervals in different locations hence it is possible that the globally strong geomagnetic field intensity circa 3000 yr ago reflects the migration of persistent hemispheric flux in northern hemisphere or an episode of geomagnetic field hemispheric asymmetry

volcanic conduit failure as a trigger to magma fragmentation in the assessment of volcanic risk it is often assumed that magma ascending at a slow rate will erupt effusively whereas magma ascending at fast rate will lead to an explosive eruption mechanistically viewed this assessment is supported by the notion that the viscoelastic nature of magma i e the ability of magma to relax at an applied strain rate linked via the gradient of flow pressure related to discharge rate controls the eruption style in such an analysis the physical interactions between the magma and the conduit wall are commonly to a first order neglected yet during ascent magma must force its way through the volcanic edifice structure whose presence and form may greatly affect the stress field through which the magma is trying to ascend here we demonstrate that fracturing of the conduit wall via flow pressure releases an elastic shock resulting in fracturing of the viscous magma itself we find that magma fragmentation occurred at strain rates seven orders of magnitude slower than theoretically anticipated from the applied axial strain rate our conclusion that the discharge rate cannot provide a reliable indication of ascending magma rheology without knowledge of conduit wall stability has important ramifications for volcanic hazard assessment new numerical simulations are now needed in order to integrate magma conduit interaction into eruption models

geomagnetic field intensity how high can it get how fast can it change constraints from iron age copper slag article the intensity of the geomagnetic field varies over different time scales yet constraints on the maximum intensity of the field as well as for its maximum rate of change are inadequate due to poor temporal resolution and large uncertainties in the geomagnetic record the purpose of this study is to place firm limits on these fundamental properties by constructing a high resolution archaeointensity record of the levant from the 11th century to the early 9th century bce a period over which the geomagnetic field reached its maximum intensity in eurasia over the past 50 000 years we investigate a 14 c dated sequence of ten layers of slag material which accumulated within an ancient industrial waste mound of an iron age copper smelting site in southern israel depositional stratigraphy constrains relative ages of samples analyzed for paleointensity and 14 c dates from different horizons of the mound constrain the age of the whole sequence the analysis yielded 35 paleointenisty data points with accuracy better than 94 and precision better than 6 covering a period of less than 350 years most probably 200 years we construct a new high resolution quasi continuous archaeointensity curve of the levant that displays two dramatic spikes in geomagnetic intensity each corresponding to virtual axial dipole moment vadm in excess of 200 zam 2