paleomagnetic secular field variation and rock magnetism of some early holocene (<9900bp) postglacial lacustrine sediments near thunder bay, northwestern ontario, canada
abstract
paleosecular magnetic changes through a 1.5m section of post-glacial lacustrine deposits
are strongly influenced by mineralogy and differential compaction. the sediments chiefly
comprise clay and, in the lower one third part of the section, rhythmites which vary from ~2mm
to ~scm in thickness. 125 paleomagnetic specimens were collected in total from the 1.5m section.
anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and anisotropy of anhysteretic remanent magnetization
identify a magnetic fabric with maximum susceptibility parallel to the bedding plane of the
sediments and with a preferred northwest-southeast axis, probably indicating paleo-current
alignment. minimum susceptibility represents the pole to bedding, due to grain alignment.
incremental acquisition and demagnetization of isothermal and anhysteretic
magnetizations and the orthogonal three-axis test indicate that the sediments contain two
magnetic phases with different coercivities. magnetic hysteresis measurements (clays n=226; silts
n=37) show that clay is dominated by single domain magnetite and hematite (means of
m5=58.47±9.22am2
, mrs=17.12±27.22am2
, hc=21.09±7.69mt, hcr=62.04±4.09mt) whereas silt
is dominated by pseudo-single domain and single domain magnetite (means of
m5=681.0±395.9am2
, mrs=163.2±84.75am2
, hc=26.07±2.94mt, hcr=56.08±3.17mt). the silt is
dominated by magnetite, whereas the clay carries both hematite and magnetite.
collections
- retrospective theses [1604]