Paleomagnetism

Paleomagnetism and polar wandering

• Paleomagnetism is the study of magnetism in rocks to learn about Earth’s
magnetic field and its history.
• Paleomagnetism is the study of magnetic rocks and sediments to record the
history of the magnetic field.
• This group of evidence emerged relatively much later (1950s) with the
development of new technology and the boom in oceanographic studies.
• How does it work?
• Magnetite makes molten magma align themselves toward the north pole.
• The magnetic minerals start to align with the surrounding magnetic field. The
alignment of these minerals becomes fixed once the lava or magma solidifies.
• This volcano erupts from time to time, and when its lava solidifies and
cools, it records the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. A geologist
armed with a magnetometer could sample down through the layers of
solidified lava and thus track the direction and intensity of the field over
the span of geologic time recorded by that volcano. In fact, geologists
did do this, and they discovered that the direction of the north pole was
not stationary over time, but instead had apparently moved around quite
a bit. There were two possible explanations for this:
1.Either the pole was stationary and the continent had moved over time, or
2.The continent was stationary and the pole had moved over time.
• Insert here multiple North pole