Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmgp42a..04f&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #GP42A-04
Other
[1595] Geomagnetism And Paleomagnetism / Planetary Magnetism: All Frequencies And Wavelengths, [5440] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon
Scientific paper
The failure of lunar samples to satisfy minimal criteria for classical paleointensity determinations has led to skepticism of the case for an ancient lunar dynamo. There are however practical and fundamental reasons why such experiments are doomed to failure in most lunar samples. In such methods, NRMs in successive blocking temperatures ranges are thermally demagnetized and replaced with partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRMs) given in a known field (Thellier, 1938). A practical difficulty is that it is hard to heat lunar samples without altering them. A fundamental problem is that whereas pottery, for which these methods were designed, carries a primary (TRM) from its initial cooling and little secondary magnetization, lunar samples are likely to carry weak field isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) and shock remanent magnetization (SRM) as secondary overprints. Thermal demagnetization does not isolate weak field IRM well. For example, on thermal demagnetization of the Apollo sample 14053.48 carrying a 2000nT TRM with a superposed 5mT IRM, the IRM persists to the Curie point obscuring the TRM. Fortunately, weak field IRM is removed by AF demagnetization to fields comparable to that in which it is acquired. Furthermore, Gattacceca et al. (2008) demonstrated that experimentally generated SRM from several GPa, like weak field IRM, is demagnetized by AF fields of between ~20 and 30 mT, leaving the pre-shock remanent magnetization essentially untouched. This agrees with our theoretical understanding of SRM, which at pressures below approximately the Hugoniot elastic limit (several GPa for most rocks) should essentially be a pressure remanent magnetization (e.g., Dunlop and Ozdemir, 1997). Unlike IRM, SRM in the range of a few GPa may carry recoverable lunar field records (Gattacceca et al., 2008). NRM in samples shocked to less than ~5 GPa, which is stable against AF demagnetization beyond the fields necessary to eliminate weak SRM (~20-30 mT), requires some other explanation. Such NRM carried by the small amount of single domain iron and iron nickel present in the samples can be very stable. The troctolite 76535 is an example of such a sample. It cooled over thousands of years, or longer, which is far too long for any possible transient fields associated with impacts and must carry a TRM like NRM. Note that despite predictions that even km sized craters may generate fields up to 0.1T at 1 crater radius, no unambiguous evidence for paleomagnetic recording of such fields over individual craters has materialized. There are numerous other candidate samples having experienced <~5 GPa carrying stable NRM, which have been analyzed, or are being presently investigated. The only other obvious source of a field to explain stable TRM in lunar rocks is that of surface lunar fields, but over the mare these are too weak to account for the NRM of mare basalts. In summary, recent advances in our understanding of SRM and reanalysis of lunar paleomagnetism lead us to conclude that lunar paleomagnetism is most easily explained by a lunar dynamo.
Fuller Michael M.
Gattacceca Jérôme
Weiss Benjamin P.
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