microwave paleointensities from dyke chilled margins a way to obtain long term variations in geodynamo intensity for the last three billion years absolute paleointensity values of the geomagnetic field measured using microwaves are obtained from chilled margin samples of proterozoic dykes from the southern superior province of the canadian shield two age groups of dykes are studied the 2446 2473 ma matachewan swarm and 2076 2170 ma dykes from the biscotasing marathon and fort frances swarms all samples selected for paleointensity study carry a dominant primary magnetization component as determined from detailed paleomagnetic studies paleointensity results quoted below are based on individual sample determinations having a quality factor greater than 10 for the matachewan dykes the mean virtual dipole moment vdm is 2 53 0 93 a m 2 10 22 based on 12 samples from 12 dykes these results compare favourably with thellier data from the same swarm by who obtained a mean vdm value based on 25 samples from five dykes of 2 80 0 87 a m 2 10 22 for the biscotasing marathon and fort frances swarms the mean vdm based on 12 samples from 12 dykes is 4 13 1 82 a m 2 10 22 a value significantly greater than that obtained by macouin et al for the same swarms of 0 98 0 10 a m 2 10 22 based on 25 samples from nine dykes possible reasons for this difference are discussed the microwave method is shown to be an effective means for measuring paleointensity on dyke chilled margins and offers the opportunity that dyke swarms which occur frequently throughout the last three billion years of geological history can be used to track any long period variations in the geomagnetic field intensity that reflect stages in the evolution of the earth s core

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

is earth s magnetic field reversing abstract earth s dipole field has been diminishing in strength since the first systematic observations of field intensity were made in the mid nineteenth century this has led to speculation that the geomagnetic field might now be in the early stages of a reversal in the longer term context of paleomagnetic observations it is found that for the current reversal rate and expected statistical variability in polarity interval length an interval as long as the ongoing 0 78 myr brunhes polarity interval is to be expected with a probability of less than 0 15 and the preferred probability estimates range from 0 06 to 0 08 these rather low odds might be used to infer that the next reversal is overdue but the assessment is limited by the statistical treatment of reversals as point processes recent paleofield observations combined with insights derived from field modeling and numerical geodynamo simulations suggest that a reversal is not imminent the current value of the dipole moment remains high compared with the average throughout the ongoing 0 78 myr brunhes polarity interval the present rate of change in earth s dipole strength is not anomalous compared with rates of change for the past 7 kyr furthermore there is evidence that the field has been stronger on average during the brunhes than for the past 160 ma and that high average field values are associated with longer polarity chrons there is no evidence from recent millennial scale time varying paleofield models to indicate that the field is entering a polarity transition nevertheless it remains a reasonable supposition that the magnetic field will eventually reverse even though the time scale is unpredictable a more immediate concern is that ongoing secular variation in the magnetic field may be expected to moderate the current high dipole strength on centennial to millennial time scales it would not be surprising if it dropped substantially returning closer to the average without necessarily reversing this could have important consequences for space weather and also highlights the need for improved understanding of the impact of geomagnetic field strength on the production rates of cosmogenic isotopes that are used to estimate past solar variability

geomagnetic field intensity during the last 5 myr ltd dht shaw palaeointensities from volcanic rocks of the society islands french polynesia summary on the basis of the thellier palaeointensities reported so far it has been thought that the time averaged virtual dipole moment vdm and virtual axial dipole moment vadm for the last few million years are almost the same as the present geomagnetic dipole moment 8 1022 a m2 this estimate has been called into question however because recent studies have revealed that the thellier method occasionally overestimates palaeointensities by as much as twice the true values in contrast a recently developed palaeointensity technique namely the double heating technique of the shaw method combined with low temperature demagnetization the ltd dht shaw method can yield expected field intensities from samples which give unreliable palaeointensities using the thellier method therefore we have measured absolute palaeointensities from 0 5 4 6 ma volcanic rocks from the society islands french polynesia mainly using the ltd dht shaw method as a result 195 out of 361 samples passed the selection criteria some of which are compared with additional results obtained with coe s version of the thellier method in the thellier experiments 18 out of 40 samples passed the criteria giving palaeointensities both consistent and inconsistent with the ltd dht shaw results these samples are characterized mostly by two segmented arai diagrams if we take the ltd dht shaw palaeointensities 24 reliable site means are available and give a mean vadm of 3 64 2 10 1022 a m2 this is nearly half of the mean of the 0 5 ma thellier data selected from the latest palaeointensity database 7 46 3 10 1022 a m2 n 458 as well as the present dipole moment the ltd dht shaw palaeointensities newly determined in this study suggest that the present day field is so strong that it may not be typical of the past geomagnetic field

palaeointensity study of the oshima 1986 lava in japan implications for the reliability of the thellier and ltd dht shaw methods abstract we have performed a palaeointensity study of the oshima 1986 lava in order to examine the reliability of the thellier and ltd dht shaw methods with special reference to high temperature oxidation states of magnetic grains coe s version of the thellier method was applied to fifteen specimens from five block samples the palaeointensities determined by this thellier method ranged from 44 8 to 59 0 t with an average of 51 0 4 1 t n 15 they are systematically higher than the expected intensity 45 5 t from the dgrf 1985 since the in situ magnetic survey at the sampling site indicates no strong local magnetic anomaly these high palaeointensities are overestimation probably due to some rock magnetic property and or some thermal alteration during the experiments microscopic observations show that the samples where some titanomagnetites surrounding vesicles were classified with intermediate oxidation indices of iii v gave 10 30 higher palaeointensity values therefore the erroneously high thellier palaeointensities have a relation to the high temperature oxidation state for eight of the fifteen specimens used in the thellier experiments the applied dc field was perpendicular to the primary nrm component for quantitative evaluation of laboratory induced chemical remanent magnetisation crm directional changes of nrm thermally demagnetised during the thellier experiments indicate that most of the samples more or less acquired crm due to laboratory heating suggesting that some magnetic phase with high blocking temperatures was produced for the specimens of intermediate oxidation level the crm appears to have been gradually acquired at relatively low temperatures 400 c it would appear to be difficult to detect this gradual thermal alteration with the standard ptrm check weak field susceptibility measurements and hysteresis parameter changes we also applied the double heating technique of the shaw method combined with low temperature demagnetisation ltd dht shaw method to seven specimens from the same block samples the palaeointensities determined by the ltd dht shaw method yielded an average of 46 4 4 7 t n 6 which agrees with the expected intensity indicating no dependence on the high temperature oxidation states

an absolute palaeointensity record from soh1 lava core hawaii using the microwave technique absolute palaeointensity results were obtained from 392 samples 166 of 241 flows from the upper 779 m of the scientific observation hole 1 soh1 basalt core kilauea volcano hawaii using the microwave palaeointensity technique based on k ar dates and a previously published age model this covers the last 45 ka thus giving a high resolution record of geomagnetic intensity in hawaii comparisons with other hawaiian absolute palaeointensity data show similar trend of higher intensity than present day for the last 3 ka and then a general decrease in intensity over the last 45 ka though this study reports consistently lower palaeointensity values direct comparison with previous thellier data from the soh1 core shows some discrepancies between the two methods with the thellier data yielding generally higher palaeointensity estimates than the microwave data in view of these discrepancies between the two methods the introduction of raw palaeointensity data into the public domain is suggested

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

holocene geomagnetic paleointensities a blind test of absolute paleointensity techniques and materials through several decades of research absolute paleointensity estimates have been obtained from a wide range of rocks with varying ages covering the last 3 45 ga years these paleointensity data are crucial to study the past geodynamo and the geological evolution of the earth s deep interior however paleointensity data are often difficult to interpret and on going discussions concerning the past geomagnetic field invariably focus on data reliability and which kind of material and method is best suited for absolute paleointensity experiments in this paper we blind test paleointensity methods and materials using the new geomagia50 database that contains all available experimental information about published paleointensity estimates covering the last 50 000 years our analysis is built on simple comparisons of results obtained from different materials and methodologies to investigate their possible influence on the paleointensity estimate we also study the effect of various numbers of samples and dating accuracies we focus on paleointensity estimates from the last 12 000 years which includes the holocene epoch the advantage of this period is that data have been obtained from a wide array of methodological techniques as well as a wide selection of materials including both natural ones e g lava flows and various archaeological artifacts our main observations are i that well fired archaeological materials bricks potteries clays and ceramics show the best correlation with the rest of the dataset which we interpret to suggest that these data are the most reliable and ii although paleointensity data obtained from lava flows are slightly more scattered there is no evidence for paleointensity data from lavas to be significantly lower or higher than other data irrespective of the methodology c 2007 elsevier b v all rights reserved less

geology of the golden grove prospect western australia a volcanogenic massive sulfide magnetite deposit potentially economic deposit stratabound two phases of sulfide precipitation separated by a major phase of fe oxide development metamorphosed under lower greenschist facies hydrothermal alteration of host rocks fe oxide abundance is due to either sea floor weathering or to a change with time in the trend of the ore solution seawater mixing path modified journal abstract

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

experimental reassessment of the shaw paleointensity method using laboratory induced thermal remanent magnetization 1 artificial thermoremanent magnetization imposed on natural basalt samples was used to check the reliability of shaw s palaeointensity method shaw 1974 kono 1978 rolph and shaw 1985 and to give an indication of the accuracy of paleointensity determinations first thermal remanence was induced in all samples 50 in total in a known field 50 0 1 t this remanence was regarded as the original natural remanent magnetization nrm the samples were divided in to three subsets a b and c and intensity experiments were performed each subset of samples used different thermal remanent magnetization trm acquisition parameters rock magnetic properties on 14 representative subsamples were also measured both before and after the trm acquisition steps to monitor possible magnetochemical alteration it has been demonstrated that intensity estimates by the shaw method give values close to the expected value 50 5 t in all three sets of basalt samples the modified method with rolph and shaw 1985 correction i e using ratios of anhysteretic remanent magnetization given before the trm step arm1 and after arm2 is proved to be a powerful approach to correct the trm capacity changes that result from magnetochemical alteration this is especially so for sample set c where the samples were heated up to 700 c and then were held at this temperature for 40 min during trm acquisition after correction 45 of set c samples gave acceptable results however some samples with strong magnetochemical alteration sometimes invalidated the arm1 arm2 ratio correction and gave wrong intensity estimates monitoring rock magnetic properties is therefore very important when applying the shaw method

thellier palaeointensity experiments on faroes flood basalts technical aspects and geomagnetic implications based on palaeomagnetic and rock magnetic results 108 samples from 27 flows from palaeogene flood basalts of faroe islands were chosen for whole rock thellier palaeointensity experiments altogether 90 samples were rejected due to either chemical alterations or typical multidomain md behaviour evidenced by ptrm tails af pre treatment was used to reduce the effect of md grains on thellier experiments only five flows 18 samples yielded acceptable palaeointensity estimates with flow mean vdms ranging from 3 5 to 7 4 10 22 am 2 modest selection criteria imposed on all published 5 160 ma palaeointensity data left only 15 palaeomagnetic dipole moments eight from whole rock samples six from submarine basaltic glass and one from single plagioclase crystals more data are needed before the intriguing differences between results from different materials can be put into a geomagnetic context 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

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

multidomain behavior during thellier paleointensity experiments results from the 1915 mt lassen flow abstract paleointensity experiments using the thellier method on samples of the 1915 mt lassen dacite flow yielded concave and s shaped nrm trm curves on arai plots departure of these curves from the ideal straight line corresponding to the known geomagnetic intensity of 54 t for the region in 1915 is significant the magnetic properties of these rocks change very little during heating and hysteresis experiments that suggest pseudo single domain to multidomain md magnetic grains are confirmed by microscopic observations thus the curvature appears to be due to md like behavior rather than to irreversible alteration of magnetic minerals in support of this interpretation the slope of the line through just the initial and the final point yields an average value of 52 t that is in good agreement with the known field intensity using the slope of only the lower or higher temperature points which is never advisable for persistently curved arai plots such as these would lead to estimates that are 30 80 too high or too low s shaped nrm trm curves are atypical in paleointensity studies and the usual explanation in terms of md unblocking temperatures less than blocking temperatures cannot account for the convex curvature of the higher temperature part rather the convex curvature can be explained by the predominance of remanence with unblocking temperatures greater than blocking temperatures the so called tail of ptrm acquired in the higher temperature part of the ptrm spectrum during the thellier experiment

dipole strength and variation of the time averaged reversing and nonreversing geodynamo based on thellier analyses of single plagioclase crystals 1 single plagioclase crystals separated from lavas can contain minute magnetic inclusions that faithfully record the geomagnetic field while the silicate host limits natural and experimentally induced alteration here we use paleointensity analyses of plagioclase crystals to examine three characteristic geodynamo regimes spanning the last 200 myr an interval of moderate reversal frequency during the paleogene the nonreversing field of the cretaceous normal polarity superchron and a period of very high reversal occurrence during the late jurassic an inverse relationship between reversal rate and intensity is supported furthermore the strength of the time averaged reversing field is more variable than that of the nonreversing field these observations are consistent with an active lower mantle shaping core mantle boundary heat flux and efficiency of the geodynamo on timescales of tens of millions of years

investigating the ancient martian magnetic field using microwaves abstract the new microwave palaeointensity technique has been used to investigate samples from the martian meteorite nakhla this technique is a promising new way to obtain absolute palaeointensity information regarding the ancient martian magnetic field as recorded by the martian meteorites assuming that a part of the magnetic remanence is of thermal origin and originating on mars the two samples studied yield estimates of 4 t for the martian magnetic field at 1 35 ga

does earth s magnetic field secular variation control centennial climate change abstract we obtained new archeointensity data from french faience potsherds dated from the 17th to 19th century these results further document the occurrence of sharp changes in geomagnetic field secular variation in western europe over the past three millennia the intensity variation curve shows several maxima whose rising parts appear to coincide in time with the occurrence of cooling events documented in this region from natural and historical data this coincidence suggests a causal link between enhanced secular variation of the geomagnetic field and climate change over centennial time scales challenging the role of solar forcing as the sole factor provoking these climatic variations we propose that the archeomagnetic jerks described by gallet et al 1 y gallet a genevey v courtillot on the possible occurrence of archeomagnetic jerks in the geomagnetic field over the past three millennia earth planet sci lett 214 2003 237 242 may engage the mechanism for centennial climate change

magnetic field intensity study of the 1960 kilauea lava flow hawaii using the microwave palaeointensity technique summary it is extremely valuable to study historic lava flows where the geomagnetic field at their time of extrusion is well known in this study two vertical sections 16 m apart have been sampled from the approximately 1 m thick 1960 kilauea lava flow hawaii variations are seen in the rock magnetic and palaeomagnetic properties between and within the two sections indicating that there are small scale lateral and vertical variations in the lava flow the two sections showed dierent responses to microwave palaeointensity analysis section h6001 generally gave ideal linear behaviour on plots of natural remanent magnetization nrm lost against microwave induced thermoremanent magnetization t m rm gained whilst the majority of samples from h6002 showed anomalous two slope behaviour when all plots were interpreted by taking the best fitting line through all points the flow mean intensity for h6001 was 31 6 3 6 mt and that for h6002 was 37 1 6 4 mt compared with the expected intensity of 36 mt additional historic flows need to be studied in order to ascertain whether this behaviour is typical of all lava and whether it is best to always interpret nrm lost t m rm gained plots by taking the line of best fit regardless of shape

paleointensity applications to timing and extent of eruptive activity 9 10 n east pacific rise placing accurate age constraints on near axis lava flows has become increasingly important given the structural and volcanic complexity of the neovolcanic zone at fast spreading ridges geomagnetic paleointensity of submarine basaltic glass sbg holds promise for placing quantitative age constraints on near axis flows in one of the first extensive tests of paleointensity as a dating tool or temporal marker we present the results of over 550 successful sbg paleointensity estimates from 189 near axis 4 km sites at the east pacific rise 9 10 n paleointensities range from 6 to 53 t and spatially correspond to the pattern expected from known temporal variations in the geomagnetic field samples within and adjacent to the axial summit trough ast have values approximately equal to or slightly higher than the present day samples out to 1 3 km from the ast have values higher than the present day and samples farther off axis have values lower than the present day the on axis samples 500 m from the ast provide a test case for using models of paleofield variation for the past few hundred years as an absolute dating technique results from samples collected near a well documented eruption in 1991 1992 suggest there may be a small negative bias in the paleointensity estimates limiting resolution of the dating technique possible explanations for such a bias include local field anomalies produced by preexisting magnetic terrain anomalously high magnetic unblocking temperatures leading to a small cooling rate bias and or the possibility of a chemical remanence produced by in situ alteration of samples likely to have complicated thermal histories paleointensity remains useful in approximating age differences in young flows and a clear along axis paleointensity contrast near 9 50 n is suggestive of a 150 200 year age difference paleointensity values of off axis samples are generally consistent with rough age interpretations based on side scan data furthermore spatial patterns in the paleointensity suggest extensive off axis flow emplacement may occur infrequently with recurrence intervals of 10 20 kyr results of a stochastic model of lava emplacement show that this can be achieved with a single distribution of flows with flow size linked to time between eruptions

the role of the earth s mantle in controlling the frequency of geomagnetic reversals a series of computer simulations of the earth s dynamo illustrates how the thermal structure of the lowermost mantle might affect convection and magnetic field generation in the fluid core eight different patterns of heat flux from the core to the mantle are imposed over the core mantle boundary spontaneous magnetic dipole reversals and excursions occur in seven of these cases although sometimes the field only reverses in the outer part of the core and then quickly reverses back the results suggest correlations among the frequency of reversals the duration over which the reversals occur the magnetic field intensity and the secular variation the case with uniform heat flux at the core mantle boundary appears most earth like this result suggests that variations in heat flux at the core mantle boundary of the earth are smaller than previously thought possibly because seismic velocity anomalies in the lowermost mantle might have more of a compositional rather than thermal origin or because of enhanced heat flux in the mantle s zones of ultra low seismic velocity

holocene paleointensities thellier experiments on submarine basaltic glass from the east pacific rise a complete description of the geomagnetic field requires both paleodirectional and paleointensity data although the paleointensity data base has grown steadily over the last three decades it remains limited in time and space the majority of data are of holocene age and come from europe furthermore it has been difficult to assess the reliability of the paleointensity determinations here we present paleointensity determinations on precisely dated holocene 0 to 3500 years old submarine basaltic glass from the east pacific rise 15 s to 22 s although hysteresis measurements and low temperature isothermal remanent magnetization irm acquisition experiments document a significant contribution of superparamagnetic grains high blocking temperatures above 400 c and curie temperatures between 490 c and 550 c indicate a single domain low ti magnetite as the carrier of the remanent magnetization this notion is further supported by the fact that saturation of remanence is achieved in moderate fields of about 200 300 mt submarine basaltic glass proves to be nearly ideal for paleointensity determinations in that it produces a high success rate for thellier experiments twenty six out of 30 samples resulted in acceptable paleointenisty determinations multiple experiments on splits from the same sample show good reproducibility the paleointensities for zero age glasses correspond precisely with the present field intensity at the site of recovery the results of the remaining samples range from 16 7 to 53 9 t with corresponding virtual axial dipole moments vadm of 3 61 1022 to 11 9 1022 a m2 the intensities vary rapidly with time excluding a westward drifting nondipole component as the source for these fluctuations basaltic glass is frequently recovered in both dredged and drilled material from the ocean floor the availability of submarine basaltic glass throughout the world oceans therefore holds great potential for a better distribution of paleointensity data through time and space