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Palaeomagnetism is the study of past variations in the Earth’s magnetic field as reconstructed from the rock and archaeological records. In addition to providing information about the intensity, polarity, declination and inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field, rock magnetism also reveals the movements of continents and ocean crust through time.
Ocean oxygenation regulates respired carbon storage and atmospheric CO2. This study applied a novel analysis using magnetic nanoparticle fossils and found glacial Indian Ocean oxygen decline and carbon accumulation to explain recent climate cycles.
An 80 thousand-year-long period of extreme non-geocentric dipole magnetic fields is recorded in Late Cambrian carbonate rocks of South China, suggesting that 495 million years ago Earth’s inner core had not grown large enough to stabilize the dynamo.
Magnetic palaeointensity data from the Barberton Greenstone Belt (South Africa) as well as the Jack Hills (Western Australia) show nearly constant palaeofield values between 3.9 Ga and 3.4 Ga, providing evidence for stagnant-lid mantle convection.
The pattern of heat flow across the core–mantle boundary results in longitudinal differences in geomagnetic field behaviour, according to geodynamo modelling.
Ocean-floor plateaus are not voluminous lava flows from central volcanoes as thought, but anomalously thick oceanic crust, suggest magnetic anomaly patterns from the Shatsky Rise, in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
Transition from a weak and erratic geomagnetic field to a more stable one around 560 million years ago, inferred from palaeomagnetic measurements, suggests that the inner core may have solidified around that time, much later than thought.
Despite legislation to protect natural sites, rock outcrops are being damaged in the name of science. Scientists, funders and publishers must push forward a stronger code of ethics.
