Paleomagnetic Secular Variation

Our magnetic field influences Earth's habitability, human technology and communications, upper atmospheric dynamics, and more. Recent changes to the field open questions as to how the field will to change in the future, and the impact this will have on the Earth system. Paleomagnetic Secular Variation (PSV), or the changes in the geomagnetic field (direction and intensity) that are reconstructed from geologic and archaeologic materials, offer a means to study the long-term behavior of our magnetic field. Moreover, the timescales of PSV are often similar to past climate and Earth process variability, providing opportunities to develop and assess the geochronology of archives that contain these coregistered signals.

Currently the LDEO PAST group is working on several PSV oriented projects with a focus on high latitude sedimentary archives.