Room-temperature instability of TRM and the problem of estimating absolute paleointensity from non single domain materials.

Abstract:

Absolute paleointensity data are essential for understanding Earth’s deep interior, climatic modeling, and geochronology applications, among others. Paleointensity data are derived from experiments in which the ancient TRM is replaced by a laboratory controlled TRM. This procedure is built on the assumption that the process of ancient TRM acquisition is entirely reproducible in the lab. Here we show experimental results violating this assumption in a manner not expected from standard theory.

We prepared 118 pairs of nearly identical specimens. One specimen from each pair was given laboratory TRM and allowed to “age” in a controlled fixed field, identical and parallel to the laboratory TRM field, for two years. After two years the second specimen was given a “fresh” TRM. Thus, the two specimens in each pair differ in only one significant respect: the time elapsed from the TRM acquisition. We carried out IZZI-type absolute paleointensity experiments on the two groups. Under the assumption of TRM stability we expect that the behavior of the twin specimens in the experiment would be exactly the same. Yet, we found a small but systematic difference between the “aged” and the “fresh” TRM. The “aged” TRM yield more curved and zigzaggy Arai plots, and exhibit a shift in the blocking/unblocking spectra. This effect leads to a systematic bias in paleointensity estimates caused only by room-temperature instability of TRM. The change in TRM properties is likely caused by irreversible changes in micromagnetic structures of non single domains.