Nature 278, 153 - 156 (08 March 1979); doi:10.1038/278153a0

Palaeomagnetic field strengths from sediments baked by lava flows of the Chaîne des Puys, France

MIKE BARBETTI^* & KEVIN FLUDE^†

^*Physics Department, University of Adelaide, G.P.O. Box 498, Adelaide 5001, Australia
^†57 Pratt Street, Camden Town, London NW1, UK

MEASUREMENTS of ancient geomagnetic strength are of great interest but are much less common than measurements of direction. This is due partly to the scarcity of materials which are both well dated and suitable for study, and partly to the amount of time required to make measurements using presently available techniques. We report here three new results from baked sediments which have been dated by thermoluminescence (TL) or radiocarbon methods. One of them is early Holocene and the others are late Pleistocene (Table 1). The localities have been described by Huxtable et al. ¹, from whom we obtained samples.

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