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Viscous demagnetization and the longevity of paleomagnetic polarity messages
Author(s) -
Denham Charles R.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/gl008i002p00137
Subject(s) - polarity (international relations) , reversing , earth's magnetic field , remanence , paleomagnetism , demagnetizing field , geomagnetic reversal , polarity reversal , geophysics , magnetostratigraphy , physics , magnetic field , poisson distribution , geology , geodesy , mathematics , chemistry , magnetization , voltage , materials science , statistics , quantum mechanics , biochemistry , composite material , cell
Viscous decay of magnetic polarity messages in rocks is slowed 3‐to‐6 fold by the reversing nature of the geomagnetic field, compared with the effect expected in a field that is constantly polarized oppositely to the original remanence. The process is studied analytically and numerically for the known geomagnetic polarity sequence, as well as for simulated sequences having constant‐length and Poisson‐distributed lengths of polarity intervals. For equal average‐interval lengths, the random Poisson reversing process causes more rapid decay than does the periodic reversing process.