An extended magnetic viscous relaxation dating for calibrating an older age: an example of tsunamigenic coral boulders in Ishigaki Island, Japan

Abstract:

A key to the understanding of past tsunami events is the ability to accurately date them. Analysis of past tsunami sediments is one of the most important tools for past tsunami reconstruction. A typical example of such tsunami sediment is tsunamigenic boulders. In Ishigaki Island, Japan, coral boulders that had been transported by tsunamis were distributed on the beach and land areas. Although the historical occurrences of several huge tsunamis were estimated based on large numbers of radiocarbon dating for coral boulders, radiocarbon dating can not determine a multiple rotational history by multiple tsunamis. A viscous remanet magnetization (VRM) dating method can be used to date any geological event that results in significant movements of a rock. Sato et al. (2014) applied VRM dating for comparing the radiocarbon age of these boulders. If a magnetic-mineral bearing rock is moved or re-oriented, the magnetism of the smaller magnetic grains re-aligns to the direction of the ambient magnetic field with time. This phenomenon is well known as Néel’s (1949, 1955) single-domain (SD) relaxation theory. Pullaiah et al. (1975) derived a time-temperature (t-T relation) relation by assuming Néel’s (1949, 1955) theory of magnetite. In principle, an experimental combination of short relaxation time and high temperature for removing VRM can determine the unknown relaxation time (tsunami age) at room temperature. We have been applied t-T relation to the coral boulders on Ishigaki Island, but their estimated ages showed older than radiocarbon dating. The longer relaxation time means that the observed magnetic relaxation is slower than the original Néel’s theory. Such slow relaxation has been described by a stretched exponential function. The stretched exponential law provided a reasonable fit to the published experimental data. Thus, in this study, we revisit Néel’s theory to provide a new t-T relation based on stretched exponential function.