This grant provides partial support for the costs of acquiring equipment to upgrade the paleomagnetics laboratory in the Department of Geology at the University of Florida (UF). Specific equipment will include an alternating field (AF) demagnetizer and a thermal demagnetizer. The UF paleomag lab is well equipped with both a u-channel superconducting rock magnetometer (SRM) and an SRM dedicated to the analysis of discrete samples. In the U.S., only two other laboratories currently operate u-channel instruments, the University of California Davis (Verosub) and the University of Hawaii (Herrerro-Bervera). PI's Channell and Opdyke utilize their rapid throughput u-channel SRM for analysis of long, high resolution paleomagnetic records in studies of magnetostratigraphy and secular variation of the geomagnetic field. A new AF demagnetizer will replace a no longer supported Schonstedt AF demagnetizer and a 60 sample capacity thermal demagnetizer will be used for paleointensity analyses via the Thellier-Thellier method in large collaborative project to characterize secular variation of the geomagnetic field from the Pliocene to present. This project entails a large field sampling program along a north-south transect from the Arctic to Antarctica along the Americas.
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