Open AccessSome aspects of the late Tertiary geomagnetic field in Iceland
Author(s) -
Kristjansson L.,
McDougall I.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
geophysical journal of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.302
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1365-246X
pISSN - 0016-8009
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-246x.1982.tb04901.x
Subject(s) - geology , lava , basalt , earth's magnetic field , sampling (signal processing) , paleontology , flood basalt , paleomagnetism , volcano , seismology , geochemistry , geophysics , magnetic field , volcanism , physics , quantum mechanics , filter (signal processing) , computer science , computer vision , tectonics
Summary. In 1972–78, the late N. D. Watkins and others carried out ajoint field programme of geological mapping in the Mio‐Pliocene flood basalts of Iceland, including sampling for K‐Ar dating and palaeomagnetic research. The major part of the palaeomagnetic sampling is represented by 2462 lavas in five long composite sections through the lava pile. This paper deals with various statistical properties of this data set. It is concluded that geomagnetic reversals occur more frequently than is assumed in the current ocean‐floor polarity time‐scale. There is no evidence for significant asymmetries between normal and reverse polarity states of the field, neither as regards chron lengths, secular variation, or virtual dipole moment magnitude. Intensities of remanence in these lavas are shown to be well approximated in terms of a hyperbolic distribution. The latitude distribution of virtual magnetic poles can be fitted with a Bingham function having k′ ∼ 4.5, and low‐latitude poles do not occur preferentially in any particular longitude interval.