This grant provides continued support for the operation, maintenance and development of the Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM) at the University of Minnesota. The IRM is a cost-effective means for providing the U.S. and international geoscience, materials science and physics communities with access to both a knowledge base and analytical arsenal that cannot be found elsewhere in the world. The application of rock magnetic techniques pioneered and/or adopted by IRM faculty that are specifically designed for low temperature, nondestructive characterization of magnetic mineral recorders continues to find broad use both by the faculty at Minnesota and by U.S. and international geoscientists. Techniques have been developed to identify biogenic magnetic minerals in marine samples through low temperature remanence measurements. Other low temperature techniques have been used to identify superparamagnetic material produced during pedogenesis in loess-paleosol sequences and these data have been applied to regional paleoclimatic studies in China, central Europe and Alaska. Studies of high-resolution Holocene records of geomagnetic field variability found in Minnesota lacustrine sediments are being used to improve techniques for the accurate measurement of paleointensity, an important constraint for modeling geomagnetic field behavior. Studies utilizing the magnetic force microscope (MFM) are fundamental to our understanding of the fidelity of magnetic mineral recorders through time and their response to temperature, chemical and stress changes and provide valuable information to the magnetic media industry. Further, new collaborations of the IRM staff with archaeologists and microbiologists holds promise for constraining the timing of man's earliest agricultural practices in southern Arabia, understanding microbial life in extreme environments at depth within the Earth's crust, and detecting evidence for microbial activity in extraterrestrial samples, through the use of novel rock magnetic and paleomagnetic techniques and proxies. In terms of outreach, the IRM has been, and continues to be, perhaps the premier training ground for graduate students in applications of rock magnetic techniques to studies in tectonics, geomagnetic field behavior and paleoclimatology. State-of-the-art research and development at the IRM finds widespread dissemination through the IRM's heralded "Visiting Scholars" program, which brings researchers from around the world to Minnesota to utilize the instruments and develop symbiotic working relationships with the IRM staff. Further, the biannual Santa Fe conference advertises the successes of many of the unique instruments and techniques available at the IRM (i.e. Magnetic Property Measurement System, Mossbauer spectrometry, Alternating Gradient Field Magnetometer, Magnetic Force Microscope) and highlights the scientific advances in the field on an international scale. ***
