Geomagnetic Field Variations in the Past: New Data, Applications and Recent Advances

In the last decades, palaeomagnetic research has provided important information about the past variation of the Earth's magnetic field (EMF) from its origin to the present day. However, questions regarding the origin and evolution of the EMF as well as the frequency and spatial distribution of its variations still remain open to debate. This Special Publication provides new insights into the study of the temporal and spatial evolution of the EMF presenting new data from palaeomagnetic and rock magnetic studies of archaeological materials, sediments and lavas. The papers presented cover a wide range of topics related to archaeology, stratigraphy and climate, including new data from several parts of the world, such as Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Baltic Sea. This Special Publication aims to present an overview of the most recent secular variation studies and their use to disclose fundamental properties of the EMF evolution.
Archaeomagnetic knowledge of the Neolithic in Bulgaria with emphasis on intensity changes
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Published:September 23, 2020
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CiteCitation
Maria Kostadinova-Avramova, Mary Kovacheva, Yavor Boyadzhiev, Gwenaël Hervé, 2020. "Archaeomagnetic knowledge of the Neolithic in Bulgaria with emphasis on intensity changes", Geomagnetic Field Variations in the Past: New Data, Applications and Recent Advances, E. Tema, A. Di Chiara, E. Herrero-Bervera
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Abstract
Several archaeological baked clay structures from Bulgarian Neolithic sites were archaeomagnetically studied. According to the ancient firing conditions, the collected materials are dwelling remains and ovens with different heating histories. The variability of magnetic properties is greater in the burnt dwelling remains compared to the ovens. The prevailing magnetic minerals are magnetite/titanomagnetite and epsilon iron oxide. Less often, the presence of hematite is suggested. For one of the ovens, a well-pronounced evolution in magnetic properties was observed between its successive levels. The collected materials possess stable magnetic mineralogy and the success rate of archaeointensity determination experiment is 84%. The experiment completely failed only for the structure where epsilon iron oxide is not identified and where the lowest median destructive fields are determined.
The obtained archaeomagnetic results are summarized as 10 new reference points. The structures subjected to the same firing event are combined as one feature. Their dating is based on well-established relative Neolithic chronology and stratigraphic constraints. The new data coincide fairly well with the Bulgarian dataset and with the data available for the neighbouring countries, confirming an intensity maximum around 5550 BC and a minimum around 5400 BC. No indications of geomagnetic ‘spikes’ or ‘jerks’ are detected.
- applications
- archaeological sites
- archaeology
- Bulgaria
- Cenozoic
- Europe
- hematite
- Holocene
- iron oxides
- magnetic field
- magnetic intensity
- magnetic minerals
- magnetic properties
- magnetite
- magnetization
- natural remanent magnetization
- Neolithic
- oxides
- paleomagnetism
- Quaternary
- remanent magnetization
- Southern Europe
- Stone Age
- thermochemical remanent magnetization
- upper Holocene