Geomagnetic Reversal - Observing Past Fields

Observing Past Fields

Past field reversals can be and have been recorded in the "frozen" ferromagnetic (or more accurately, ferrimagnetic) minerals of consolidated sedimentary deposits or cooled volcanic flows on land.

The past record of geomagnetic reversals was first noticed by observing the magnetic stripe "anomalies" on the ocean floor. Lawrence W. Morley, Frederick John Vine and Drummond Hoyle Matthews made the connection to seafloor spreading in the Morley-Vine-Matthews hypothesis which soon led to the development of the theory of plate tectonics. The relatively constant rate at which the sea floor spreads results in substrate "stripes" from which past magnetic field polarity can be inferred from data gathered from towing a magnetometer along the sea floor.

Because no existing unsubducted sea floor (or sea floor thrust onto continental plates) is more than about 180 million years (Ma) old, other methods are necessary for detecting older reversals. Most sedimentary rocks incorporate tiny amounts of iron rich minerals, whose orientation is influenced by the ambient magnetic field at the time at which they formed. These rocks can preserve a record of the field if it is not later erased by chemical, physical or biological change.

Because the magnetic field is global, similar patterns of magnetic variations at different sites may be used to correlate age in different locations. In the past four decades much paleomagnetic data about seafloor ages (up to ~250 Ma) has been collected and is useful in estimating the age of geologic sections. Not an independent dating method, it depends on "absolute" age dating methods like radioisotopic systems to derive numeric ages. It has become especially useful to metamorphic and igneous geologists where index fossils are seldom available.