Abstract
Within the last 15–20 years, an increasing number of environmental scientists have become interested in investigating the magnetic properties of a range of earth surface materials, from atmospheric dusts, soils, and all kinds of sediments — deep-sea, lacustrine, estuarine, terrestrial —, to organic tissues of insects, fish, even Man. This upsurge of interest in ‘environmental magnetism’ is based on several factors. First, magnetic measurements of natural materials are highly sensitive; they can detect the presence of ferrimagnetic minerals, such as magnetite, at concentrations as low as ten parts per million. Second, variations in the magnetic mineralogies, concentrations and grain sizes of natural materials are often diagnostic of their pathway of formation. Hence, such variations can be used to identify environmental processes; for example, in identifying sediment sources, tracing the movement and transformation of iron in soils, detecting atmospheric pollution over historical timescales, and so on (Thompson & Oldfield (1986)).
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Maher, B.A. (1991). Inorganic Formation of Ultrafine-Grained Magnetite. In: Frankel, R.B., Blakemore, R.P. (eds) Iron Biominerals. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3810-3_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3810-3_13
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