9727032 Housen This grant provides partial support of the costs of acquiring a superconducting rock magnetometer (SRM) for the paleomagnetics laboratory at Western Washington University. The PI, Bernie Housen is a recent addition to the Geology Department faculty at Western Washington, having just completed a postdoctoral program at the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota. In addition to Housen, Professor emeritus Myrl Beck and Russ Burmeister will utilize the SRM in their research. The addition of an SRM at WWU will allow analyses of weakly magnetized sediments for research aimed at understanding the influences of oxidizing fluids and active deformation on the magnetic properties of accretionary prism sediments and the combined effects of chemical diagenesis and biological activity on the magnetic records recorded in marine sediments both in natural samples and in laboratory cultures. This facility will be unique to the Pacific Northwest region and will support additional collaborative studies by researchers from nearby institutions including the University of Washington, University of Puget Sound, University of Idaho and the University of Montana. This SRM will be housed in a newly constructed field free room and complement additional paleomagnetic instrumentation that has recently been acquired (i.e. alternating field demagnetizer, Kappa bridge). Support for this grant is shared between the Earth Sciences Instrumentation and Facilities Program (EAR/IF) and Division of Ocean Sciences Oceanographic Instrumentation and Technical Service Program (OCE/ITS) and the Ocean Drilling Program (OCE/ODP) ***
