Superconducting Rock Magnetometer

This award provides 50 per cent funding for the acquisition of a superconducting cryogenic 3-axis rock magnetometer to be installed and operated in the Paleomagnetics Laboratory at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University. The University is committed to providing the remaining 50 per cent needed for the acquisition. The new magnetometer will be used to analyze rock magnetism in geological samples in research projects of the Principal Investigator and on-campus as well as off-campus collaborators. Their research is aimed at documenting past records of geomagnetic field vectors as a function of geologic time in order to understand plate tectonic movements, the apparent wandering of the Earth's magnetic poles, and the origins of the main dipole component of the geomagnetic field.