Towards Understanding the Interconnection between Celestial Pole Motion and Earth's Magnetic Field Using Space Geodetic Techniques.

The understanding of forced temporal variations in celestial pole motion (CPM) could bring us significantly closer to meeting the accuracy goals pursued by the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG), i.e., 1 mm accuracy and 0.1 mm/year stability on global scales in terms of the Earth orientation parameters. Besides astronomical forcing, CPM excitation depends on the processes in the fluid core and the core-mantle boundary. The same processes are responsible for the variations in the geomagnetic field (GMF). Several investigations were conducted during the last decade to find a possible interconnection of GMF changes with the length of day (LOD) variations. However, less attention was paid to the interdependence of the GMF changes and the CPM variations. This study uses the celestial pole offsets (CPO) time series obtained from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations and data such as spherical harmonic coefficients, geomagnetic jerk, and magnetic field dipole moment from a state-of-the-art geomagnetic field model to explore the correlation between them. In this study, we use wavelet coherence analysis to compute the correspondence between the two non-stationary time series in the time-frequency domain. Our preliminary results reveal interesting common features in the CPM and GMF variations, which show the potential to improve the understanding of the GMF's contribution to the Earth's rotation. Special attention is given to the corresponding signal between FCN and GMF and potential time lags between geomagnetic jerks and rotational variations.

Earth's magnetic field is probably not reversing.

The geomagnetic field has been decaying at a rate of ∼5% per century from at least 1840, with indirect observations suggesting a decay since 1600 or even earlier. This has led to the assertion that the geomagnetic field may be undergoing a reversal or an excursion. We have derived a model of the geomagnetic field spanning 30-50 ka, constructed to study the behavior of the two most recent excursions: the Laschamp and Mono Lake, centered at 41 and 34 ka, respectively. Here, we show that neither excursion demonstrates field evolution similar to current changes in the geomagnetic field. At earlier times, centered at 49 and 46 ka, the field is comparable to today's field, with an intensity structure similar to today's South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA); however, neither of these SAA-like fields develop into an excursion or reversal. This suggests that the current weakened field will also recover without an extreme event such as an excursion or reversal. The SAA-like field structure at 46 ka appears to be coeval with published increases in geomagnetically modulated beryllium and chlorine nuclide production, despite the global dipole field not weakening significantly in our model during this time. This agreement suggests a greater complexity in the relationship between cosmogenic nuclide production and the geomagnetic field than is commonly assumed.

Validity of archaeomagnetic field recording: an experimental pottery kiln at Coppengrave, Germany.

Palaeomagnetic data obtained from archaeological materials are used for reconstructions of the Earth's magnetic field of the past millennia. While many studies tested the reliability of this recorder for palaeointensity only a few studies did this for direction. The study presents an archaeomagnetic and rock magnetic investigation applied to an experimental pottery kiln, which was operated in 2003 to produce stone ware. This kind of high-quality pottery needs a temperature of at least 1160 °C. Shortly before heating of the kiln direct absolute measurements of the absolute geomagnetic field vector have been carried out close to it. After cooling of the kiln 24 oriented palaeomagnetic samples have been taken. Although Curie temperatures are about 580 °C, that is the typical temperature for magnetite, thermal as well as alternating field demagnetisations reveal also a considerable amount of hematite as magnetic carrier. This mixture of magnetite and hematite is dominated by pseudo-single domain grains. Demagnetisation removed in some cases weak secondary components, but in most cases the specimens carried a single component thermoremanent magnetisation. The mean characteristic remanent magnetisation direction agrees on 95 per cent confidence level with the directly measured field direction. Archaeointensity was obtained from five specimens with the Thellier-Coe method and with the multiple-specimen palaeointensity domain-state corrected method. Six of these specimens also provided a result of the Dekkers-Böhnel method, which overestimated the archaeointensity by about 9 per cent compared to the direct value, while after correction for fraction the value agrees very well. For the multiple-specimen palaeointensity domain-state corrected method only fractions between 25 and 75 per cent have been used and specimens showing alteration have been excluded. Above 450 °C many specimens showed alteration of the magnetic grains. Because median destructive temperatures were often above this value in most cases the fraction was less than 50 per cent. Nevertheless the obtained intensity (48.48 ± 0.24 µ) is on 95 per cent confidence level in agreement with the direct observation. Behaviour of the specimens during the Thellier-experiments was not ideal because of narrow unblocking temperature spectra and alteration. Nevertheless, the obtained mean archaeointensity is also in agreement with the direct field observation. Here the relative palaeointensity error is about 6 per cent and very high compared the multiple-specimen palaeointensity domain-state corrected method. The investigation demonstrates that a pottery kiln can provide a very precise estimate of the ancient geomagnetic field vector.