Abstract
Rock magnetic measurements have been applied to two adjacent loessial soil sections from a small region, SE Iceland. The soils are composed of reworked locally derived sediment (including airfall tephra) and also contain several visible discrete airfall tephra layers. The main magnetic minerals in the airfall tephras are ferrimagnetic (e.g. magnetite) with paramagnetic minerals also present. The main magnetic grain sizes in the tephras are pseudo single domain. The results show that individual tephras do not have unique magnetic signatures that can be used for identification and correlation between sedimentary sequences. However, a correlation of tephra layers was achieved through the application of statistical techniques to a comprehensive dataset of magnetic parameters. Similarity coefficients and Euclidian distance measures were used to identify the best correlation between tephra layers in the two soil profiles. The technique works well providing some tephras present within both profiles have been formally identified (e.g. Oraefajokulla ad 1362) using electron microprobe analyses. Given this initial framework, the statistical analyses of the magnetic parameters can help in the identification and correlation of unknown tephras between two soil profiles.
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Acknowledgments
Dunsheng Xia acknowledges the support of an Overseas Research Scholarship from Universities UK and a Studentship award from the Faculty of Science, University of Liverpool. The University of Liverpool financed the fieldwork in Iceland through a Research Development Fund grant (RC). It was also partly funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40401064) and International Collaboration Project of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2002CB714004). Thanks are accorded to NERC for funding the analyses and to Peter Hill and Dave Plant at the respective EPMA units for their help and support.
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Xia, D., Chun, X., Bloemendal, J. et al. Use of magnetic signatures to correlate tephra layers in Holocene loessial soil profiles from a small region, SE Iceland. Environ Geol 51, 1425–1437 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-006-0439-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-006-0439-2