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Absolute Paleointensities from an Intact Section of Oceanic Crust Cored at ODP/IODP Site 1256 in the Equatorial Pacific

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The Earth's Magnetic Interior

Part of the book series: IAGA Special Sopron Book Series ((IAGA,volume 1))

Abstract

We have investigated the magnetic mineralogy and absolute paleointensity of basalt samples from Site 1256 cored during ODP Leg 206 and IODP Expeditions 309 and 312. The site is located on the Cocos Plate 5 km east of the transition zone between marine magnetic anomalies 5Bn.2n and 5Br (~15 Ma). The deepest hole, Hole 1256D, extends 250 m through sediments and 1257 m into the igneous upper oceanic crust generated by superfast seafloor spreading (>200 mm/yr) along the East Pacific Rise. This is the first drill site to penetrate an in situ and intact section of crust. The section consists of about 811 m of basaltic sheet flows and massive lavas, 346 m of sheeted-dike complex, and 100 m of gabbros and granoblastic dikes. Rock magnetic investigations included thermomagnetic analyses, alternating field, thermal demagnetization, saturation IRM, magnetic grain-size and coercivity analyses. Curie points identified titanomagnetites and titanomaghemites as the magnetic carriers and grain-size studies indicate that the carriers are mixtures of single domain (SD) and pseudosingle domain (PSD) grains. Using the Thellier-Coe method, we have attempted paleointensity determinations for 82 specimens sampled from different “stratigraphic” levels of the core. Partial thermal remanent magnetization (pTRM) checks were performed systematically one temperature step down from the last pTRM acquisition in order to document magnetomineralogical changes. The determinations were obtained from the slope of the pTRM gained vs. natural remanent magnetization lost in the Arai diagrams. Only about 6% of the samples (i.e. 5 samples) yielded marginally acceptable results. The paleofield estimated ranges from 16 to 28 μT and has a mean virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) of 5 × 1022 A/m2, which is concordant with the average intensity for the period between 0 and 160 Myr (4 ± 2 × 1022 A/m2) and is about 2/3 of the strength of the present field (~8 × 1022 A/m2).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Mr. James Lau for his laboratory assistance and help with the laboratory measurements. We thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive criticism. We also give special thanks to the participating scientists and crew members of JOIDES Resolution for their help and support during the scientific cruises. This research used samples and data provided by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through its support of ODP, IODP, and the United States Science Support Program (USSSP) and through NSF grants JOI-T309A4, OCE-0727764, and EAR-IF-0710571 to Herrero-Bervera and grant OCE-0727576 to Acton. Additional financial support to E. H-B was provided by SOEST-HIGP. This is HIGP and SOEST contributions 1891 and 8148, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paleomagnetics and Petrofabrics Laboratory, School of Ocean & Earth Science & Technology (SOEST), Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP), 1680 East West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822, USA

    Emilio Herrero-Bervera

  2. Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Gary Acton

Authors
  1. Emilio Herrero-Bervera
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  2. Gary Acton
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Correspondence to Emilio Herrero-Bervera .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geophysical Institute, ASCR Praha, Bocni II / 1401, Praha 4, 141 31, Czech Republic

    Eduard Petrovský

  2. School of Mathematics & Statistics, Dept. Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, New South Wales, Australia

    David Ivers

  3. National Geophysical Research Institute, Uppal Road, Hyderabad, 500007, India

    T Harinarayana

  4. School of Ocean & Earth Science &, Technology (SOEST), University of Hawaii, East-West Road 1680, Honolulu, 96822, Hawaii, USA

    Emilio Herrero-Bervera

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Herrero-Bervera, E., Acton, G. (2011). Absolute Paleointensities from an Intact Section of Oceanic Crust Cored at ODP/IODP Site 1256 in the Equatorial Pacific. In: Petrovský, E., Ivers, D., Harinarayana, T., Herrero-Bervera, E. (eds) The Earth's Magnetic Interior. IAGA Special Sopron Book Series, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0323-0_13

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