Abstract
Paleomagnetism, the record of the geomagnetic field carried by rocks, has played a key role in our understanding of Earth. In this chapter, we review the history of our understanding of the Earth’s magnetic field and its paleomagnetic record, as an indication of what the possible record of a lunar field might yield. We also begin to consider the ubiquitous magnetic fields in the cosmos and how they are generated and maintained.
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Notes
- 1.
When I was a student at Caius College Cambridge, Joseph Needham was writing his great text and I remember going to lectures of his. It was a joke among some of us that since each volume got larger than the last it was not clear that the task would ever be finished. However, it was and became one of the great scholarly works of the mid-20th Century. The references to magnetism are in Volume 4, part 1 Needham (1962).
- 2.
Aczell gives a delightful account of the early development of the compass in the west, leading to the boxed version with its compass card produced in Amalfi between 1295 and 1302. By this time, Amalfi already had a long history as a maritime power. When it was replaced by the states of Genoa and Venice, the compass continued to play a major role, as it has done subsequently for all seafarers (Aczell 2001).
- 3.
Private photograph taken, I believe, by Vic Schmidt, who joined our research group from Carnegie Tech., as it was then known.
- 4.
Excellent coverage of the story of the convergence of paleomagnetism and age determination leading to sea floor spreading and plate tectonics (Glen 1982).
- 5.
Morley’s recognition of the seafloor imprinting of the reversal is recounted in fascinating detail in page 301, 302 of Glen’s book. It is worth noting that Bob Dietz was in the forefront here on sea floor spreading, as he was in the interpretation of craters as impact features.
- 6.
There are by now excellent texts covering the magnetism of rocks and the record they carry, The most comprehensive and the standard text of Rock Magnetism is by Dunlop and Ozdemir (1997). For an account, which includes more paleomagnetism and geological applications is another excellent source (Butler 1992).
- 7.
The alphabet soup of mechanisms of remanent magnetizations is a constant source of irritation to those not in the paleomagnetism club and so I have included a glossary (Appendix 3).
References
Aczell AD (2001) The riddle of the compass, Harcourt Press, California
Butler RF (1992) From magnetic domains to geologic terranes. Blackwell Scientific Publications, New Jersey
Dunlop DJ, Ozdemir O (1997) Rock magnetism fundamentals and frontiers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Glen W (1982) The road to Jaramillo, Stanford University Press, California
Nagata T, Fisher RM, Schwerer FC (1972) Lunar rock magnetism. The Moon 4:160–186
Needham J (1962) Science and civilization in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
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Fuller, M. (2014). The Earth’s Magnetism: Paleomagnetism as a Rosetta Stone for Earth History. In: Our Beautiful Moon and its Mysterious Magnetism. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00278-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00278-1_6
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