Publications

The preliminary geomagnetic data included here is made available to scientific personnel and organizations, as part of a cooperative effort and on a data exchange basis because of the early need by some users. To avoid delay, all of the data is copied from original forms processed at the observatory; therefore it should be regarded as preliminary.

The preliminary geomagnetic data included here is made available to scientific personnel and organizations, as part of a cooperative effort and on a data exchange basis because of the early need by some users. To avoid delay, all of the data is copied from original forms processed at the observatory; therefore it should be regarded as preliminary.

The preliminary geomagnetic data included here is made available to scientific personnel and organizations, as part of a cooperative effort and on a data exchange basis because of the early need by some users. To avoid delay, all of the data is copied from original forms processed at the observatory; therefore it should be regarded as preliminary.

A smooth field over the central Pacific for a million years indicates a nonuniform lower mantle of the earth.

New data show that the Olduvai normal geomagnetic polarity event is represented in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, by rocks covering a time span of roughly from 0.1 to 0.2 my and is no older than 2.0 my. Hence the long normal polarity event of this age that is seen in deep-sea sediment cores and in magnetic profiles over oceanic ridges should be called the Olduvai event. The lava from which the Gilsàeven

Direct measurements of the direction and strength of the earth's magnetic field have provided a knowledge of the field's form and behavior during the last few hundreds of years. For older times, however, it has been necessary to measure the magnetism of certain rocks to learn what the geomagnetic field was like. For example, when a lava flow solidifies (at temperatures near 1000°C) and cools throu

Although decreasing rapidly, the earth's magnetic field is probably not now reversing.

New paleomagnetic and potassium-argon dating measurements have been made of basalt flows from Nunivak Island, Alaska, with the following results. (1) The best estimate of the age of the Brunhes/Matuyama polarity epoch boundary is found to be 0.694 m.y. (2) The best estimate of the age of the Gauss/Gilbert boundary is 3.32 m.y. (3) Three normally magnetized flows with ages from 0.93 to 0.88 m.y. ar

Analysis of cores collected from a sequence of lavas in Eastern Iceland has made possible an accurate calculation of the average rate of reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.

The lower lava flow of Bed I in Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, carries natural remanent magnetization (NRM) having normal polarity. Thermal demagnetization experiments demonstrate the stability of this NRM. Thus the Olduvai geomagnetic polarity event, which was originally named from the upper lava flow in Bed I, is represented in its type locality by two normally magnetized lavas. These lavas have bee

A paleomagnetic and K-Ar dating study of 44 upper Miocene and Pliocene volcanic units from the western United States suggests that the frequency of reversals of the earth's magnetic field during Pliocene time may have been comparable with that of the last 3.6 m.y. Although the data are too limited to permit the formal naming of any new polarity epochs or events, four polarity transitions have been

Recent paleomagnetic-radiometric data from six rhyolite domes in the Valles Caldera, New Mexico, indicate that the last change in polarity of the earth's magnetic field from reversed to normal (the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary) occurred at about 0.7 million years ago. A previously undiscovered geomagnetic polarity event, herein named the "Jaramillo normal event," occurred about 0.9 million years ago.