9413732 Verosub This award provides one-half the funding required to construct an instrument system for making continuous high- resolution measurements of cores of lake and marine sediments and of soil profiles. The system will be installed and operated in the Department of Geology at the University of California-Davis. The University is committed to providing the remaining funds required to complete the project. When magnetic mineral grains are deposited as sediment at the bottom of water bodies under quiet conditions or become incorporated in developing soil profiles, the grains are aligned parallel to the geomagnetic field, and their alignment can later be used to decipher the past history of the magnetic field during the time represented by the accumulation of the sediment or soil profile. The primary goal of the new instrumentation will be to obtain continuous interpretations of climate change using the variation of magnetic parameters measured along the length of sediment cores. A complementary scientific goal of the facility will be to obtain a history of the behavior of the Earth's magnetic field, including variations in the direction and intensity of the field. ***
