Geomagnetic Insights and Magneto-Stratigraphic Opportunities Provided Through IODP Drilling: New Results from the Southern Alaska Margin IODP EXP 341

Event Type: 
Geosciences Lecture Series
Date: 
Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - 10:10am
Oregon State University
Location: 
134 Morrill Science Center

Part of the International Ocean Drilling Program Visiting Lecture Series.

IODP drilling of marine sediments provides the unique opportunity to sample otherwise inaccessible archives, offering insights to Earth history unobtainable through other means. Paleomagnetism, the study of Earth’s magnetic field recorded in geological materials, is often used to date these drilled records employing an approach known as magnetic stratigraphy. Paleo-geomagnetic records also constrain our understanding of geodynamo processes that drive Earth’s magnetic field and provide direct insights into the paleo-magnetosphere that shields Earth from cosmic rays. Because the geomagnetic field is not globally uniform, our understanding of geomagnetic change is limited by a lack of observations from regions of the globe where high quality records have not been drilled. A concerted effort on sediments collected during Expedition 341(Southern Alaska Margin Tectonics, Climate and Sedimentation) is allowing a series of long, high-resolution paleomagnetic records to be developed that are facilitating an improved understanding of the geomagnetic field and the time control it enables. These studies outline the symbiotic relationship between paleo-geomagnetism and drilling that are critical if we are to understand Earth’s magnetic field and its past.
 
Joe Stoner is an associate professor of oceanography in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS). He has spent more than a year at sea on national and international research expeditions, including five ODP/IODP expeditions, and has also been involved in a number of field programs spanning a large part of the Arctic, including Svalbard, Greenland, Ellesmere Island and Alaska.