This proposal provides partial funding to create an Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota. The Institute will provide technical support and advanced equipment needed for the magnetic characterization of rocks and their constituent minerals for in-house and visiting rock-magnetism and paleomagnetism researchers. New methods based on magneto-optics and electron-optics for mapping magnetization fluctuations at a scale of 10 nm in single, in-situ, grains, and new techniques for synthesis of ultrafine magnetic minerals of controlled grainsize and internal strain have created the conditions for a renaissance in rock magnetism. The new thrust made possible is aimed at better understanding of the ways in which rocks acquire and retain their magnetization through geologic time. The benefits of such new understanding ranges from explaining how the earth's magnetic field reverses its polarity to an improved ability to decipher the magnetization of rocks in terms of ancient geomagnetic fields and the resulting reconstructions of past global changes in continental land masses.
