The Paleomagnetic Record of Continental and Ocean Drilling: The Only way Forward

English Abstract:

Drilling provides the unique opportunity to sample otherwise inaccessible archives, acquiring otherwise unobtainable information. Paleomagnetism is often used to date such records, yet from a paleomagnetic perspective often the most exciting results are the information it provides on the past history of the geomagnetic field. These paleo-geomagnetic observations provide fundamental models of the core and the geodynamo, telling how and possibly even why the geomagnetic field changes. Because geomagnetic change is what all paleomagnetic stratigraphies are based upon, an improved understanding of the geomagnetic field influences how we can use it to tell time, as well as improving the precision and accuracy of standard techniques. Because sediment paleomagnetic records preserve only a low pass filtered version of the geomagnetic field and the largest extreme events only occurred in the more distant past, critical observations needed to study the geomagnetic field such as long, high-resolution, directional and intensity time series and expanded intervals of polarity transitions (reversals, excursions), can only be routinely obtained through drilling. Here I will discuss this symbiotic relationship between paleo-geomagnetism and drilling; outlining opportunities for future understanding, strategies for improved stratigraphies, and how such records will allow a more complete understanding of the geomagnetic field and all the processes that it governs.