Nature 374, 687 - 692 (20 April 1995); doi:10.1038/374687a0

New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal

R. S. Coe^*, M. Prévot^† & P. Camps^†

^*Earth Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
^†Laboratoire de Géophysique et Tectonique, Université de Montpellier 2, URA CNRS 1760, 34095 Montpellier Cédex 05, France

Palaeomagnetic results from lava flows recording a geomagnetic polarity reversal at Steens Mountain, Oregon suggest the occurrence of brief episodes of astonishingly rapid field change of six degrees per day. The evidence is large, systematic variations in the direction of remanent magnetization as a function of the temperature of thermal demagnetization and of vertical position within a single flow, which are most simply explained by the hypothesis that the field was changing direction as the flow cooled.

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