Course code: PHY 210.

Course: Physics of the Solid Earth

Lecturer: Archibong, Mbereobong F.

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD

Earth’s liquid iron core convects because it is heated from beneath by the inner core. Because
iron is a metal and conducts electricity (even when molten), its motion generates a magnetic
field.

Earth’s magnetic field is defined by north and south poles representing lines of magnetic force
flowing into Earth in the northern hemisphere and out of Earth in the southern hemisphere
(Figure 1.0). Because of the shape of the field lines, the magnetic force is oriented at different
angles to the surface in different locations. The tilt, or inclination of magnetic field lines is
represented by the tilt of compass needles in Figure 1.0. At the north and south poles, the force
is vertical. The force is horizontal at the equator. Everywhere in between, the magnetic force is
at an intermediate angle to the surface.

Figure 1.0: Earth’s magnetic field depicted as

the field of a bar magnet coinciding with the
core. The south pole of the magnet points to
Earth’s magnetic north pole. The red and white
compass needles represent the orientation of
the magnetic field at various locations on
Earth’s surface.
Regular compasses point only to the north magnetic pole, but if you had a magnetic dip meter
(or a smartphone with the appropriate app), you could also measure the angle of the magnetic
field at your location in the up-and-down sense. However, you don’t need a dip meter or app to
do this exercise!

Earth’s magnetic field is generated within the outer core by the convective movement of liquid
iron, but although convection is continuous, the magnetic field is not stable. Periodically, the
magnetic field decays and then becomes re-established. When it does re-establish, the polarity
may have reversed (i.e., your compass would point south rather than north). Over the past 250
Ma, there have been hundreds of magnetic field reversals, and their timing has been anything
but regular. The shortest ones that geologists have been able to identify lasted only a few
thousand years, and the longest one was more than 30 million years, during the Cretaceous
Period (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Magnetic field reversal chronology for the past 170 Ma. Black stripes mark times when the magnetic
field was oriented the same as today.

Changes in Earth’s magnetic field have been studied using mathematical models that simulate
convection in the outer core (Figure 1.1). Reversals happened spontaneously when the model
was run to simulate a period of several hundred thousand years. Spontaneous reversals can
happen because convection does not occur in an orderly way, in spite of what the bar magnet
analogy may suggest. Many small-scale variations occur in convection patterns within the inner
core, and Earth’s magnetic field over all is the sum of those variations. Magnetic reversals do
not happen as frequently as they might, if not for the solid inner core. Magnetic field changes
take much longer within the inner core, so reversals in the outer core do not always coincide
with reversals in the inner core. Both are required in order for Earth’s magnetic field to flip.
 Figure 1.3:
Earth’s
magnetic field between reversals (left) and during a reversal (right). The lines represent magnetic field lines: blue
where the field points toward Earth’s centre and yellow where it points away. The rotation axis of Earth is
vertical, and the outline of the core is shown as a dashed white circle.

Electrical currents flowing in the slowly moving molten iron generate the magnetic field. In
addition to sources in the Earth's core the magnetic field observable at the Earth's surface has
sources in the crust and in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. The geomagnetic field varies on
a range of scales and a description of these variations is now made, in the order low frequency
to high frequency variations, in both the space and time domains.

ROCKS MAGNETISM

In the general study of the rock magnetism is included the analysis of those basic magnetic
properties of a rocky body that do not directly represent the fossil (or remanent) magnetism of
the rock that, instead, constitutes the matter of study of paleomagnetism. Among such
magnetic properties are included the magnetic susceptibility, the hysteresis characteristics (in
particular the determination of the coercivity spectrum and the saturation field), and the
changes in the magnetic status related to temperature (determination of the Curie temperature
and phase transitions at low temperature). All the above-described properties allow the
determination of the magnetic mineralogy of the studied rock, which are critical for a correct
interpretation of paleomagnetism. The knowledge of the magnetic minerals in a rock is
essential to evaluate the geological process that affected the rock and from which its stable
magnetism derives. The study of the concentration, composition and granulometry of the
magnetic mineralogy in sediments and their variation in space and time in a sedimentation
basin, has recently found an important application in studies of environmental magnetismo.

Many of the magnetic properties of a rock are also anisotropic, thus depend on the direction of
measurement. The study of the magnetic anisotropy of the rocks is particularly focussed on the
magnetic susceptibility (that indicates the ratio between the magnetization produced in a rock
sample from the action of a weak inducing magnetic field and the intensity of the field itself)
and the remanent magnetisation (that instead represents the magnetisation that can be
measured in a rock when it is not affected by any external magnetic field).

Paleomagnetism deals with the study of the natural magnetization of rocks. In particular, the
remaining natural magnetization (NRM), that is, the magnetization that is measured when no
external magnetic field acts on the rock. Almost all rocks possess an NRM, which is generally
very weak and requires very sophisticated instruments to be measured ( INGV paleomagnetism
laboratory) . NRM is due to the presence of even an extremely small amount of magnetic
minerals(the best known of which is magnetite). The NRM of a rock is generally the resultant of
several components acquired at different times in its geological history. Each rock acquires a
magnetization component at the moment of its formation, which is called "primary"
magnetization. The methods of acquisition of primary magnetization are different for the
different main types of rocks, but they all depend on the action of the earth's magnetic field
during lithogenesis: igneous rocks, which derive from the consolidation of a magma, acquire a
stable magnetization during the cooling and consolidation process.

Sedimentary rocks, which are formed by the accumulation of detrital granules, acquire a stable
magnetization during the deposition and compaction of the sediment.
Figure 1.4: Acquisition of a residual detrital magnetization (DRM) from a sediment. From the settling of the
granules to the compaction of the sediment, the orientation of the magnetic clasts (black, with arrow) is guided
by the earth's magnetic field

Over the course of geological times, other magnetizations can be acquired by heating
processes, meteoric alteration and the diagenetic creation of new magnetic minerals. These
magnetizations are called "secondary" and are vectorially added to the primary component. All
rocks are also subject to the action of the current magnetic field, which produces a further
remaining magnetization, called viscose, which also adds to the magnetization components
acquired previously. In a paleomagnetism study the aim is to recognize how many remaining
magnetization components there are in a rock, to define their orientation and to date the
moment of their acquisition. This is possible through sophisticated laboratory analyzes, which
are basically based on the gradual demagnetization of a statistically significant number of
samples. The main applications of paleomagnetism in the field of Earth Sciences are addressed
to the definition of crustal and lithosphere mobility.(paleomagnetism and tectonics) of our
planet, to the analysis of the characteristics of the earth's magnetic field over geological times
and to the study of the alternation of magnetic polarities in a rocky sequence
(magnetostratigraphy) .
Time Scale of Magnetic Polarity for the last 30 million years

Time Scale of Magnetic Polarity for the last 30 million years

black: normal
magnetic polarity; white: reverse magnetic polarity

In favorable stratigraphic sections, with good paleomagnetic properties and high sedimentation
rate, magnetostratigraphy is also used to study the characteristics of the earth's magnetic field
during a polarity inversion and, in the case of very recent sediments, to extend in geological
time the historical instrumental observations on the secular variation of the earth's magnetic
field.
An international project currently underway in Antarctica ( Cape Roberts Project ) integrates
the magnetostratigraphy and environmental magnetism data of the Cenozoic sedimentary
succession present at the bottom of the Ross Sea into a close interconnection of
multidisciplinary data, with the ambitious goal of dating and understanding the beginning of the
Antarctic glaciation, with its planetary climatic and environmental resentments. The ING is
contributing substantially to this project, in collaboration with the University of California at
Davis, with the temporary setting up of the first paleomagnetism laboratory in Antarctica, at the
US base of McMurdo .

POLAR WANDERING:

True polar wander (TPW) can be defined as the relative movement between the mantle (and so
the surface of the Earth) and the Earth’s spin axis or its rotational axis. Incredibly, researchers
believe that over the past one billion years, the Earth’s surface has “tipped over” and then
returned to its original location six times along the same axis – this is the process of “oscillatory
true polar wander”. Scientists have worked this out by studying magnetism in rocks – a
discipline known as “paleomagnetism”. If a rock cools in a magnetic field, it records the
magnetic properties of the field and these can be decoded in the lab millions of years later. So,
by measuring changes in the orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field that are stored in ancient
rocks, scientists can “see” the effects of the oscillatory TPW.

3.1 Reversals

When a rock is formed it usually acquires a magnetisation parallel to the ambient magnetic
field, i.e. the core-generated field. From careful analyses of directions and intensities of rock
magnetisation from many sites around the world it has been established that the polarity of the
axial dipole has changed many times in the past, with each polarity interval lasting several
thousand years. These reversals occur slowly and irregularly, and for a period of about 30
million years around about 100 million years before present, there were no reversals at all. In
addition to full reversals there have been many aborted reversals when the magnetic poles are
observed to move equatorwards for a while but then move back and align closely with the
Earth's spin axis. The solid inner metal core is thought to play an important role in inhibiting
reversals. At the present time we are seeing a 6% decline in the dipole moment per century.
Whether this is a sign of an imminent reversal is difficult to say.

3.2 The present magnetic field

In a source-free region near the surface of the Earth the magnetic field is the negative gradient
of a scalar potential which satisfies Laplace's equation. A solution to Laplace's equation in
spherical coordinates is called a spherical harmonic expansion and its parameters are called
Gauss coefficients. There are internal or external coefficients, modelling the field generated
inside or outside the Earth respectively. A separation of the core and crustal fields, both
internal, is not perfect. The internal field is often called the main field.

The main-field coefficients change with time as the core-generated field changes, and in
commonly used spherical harmonic models, for example the International Geomagnetic
Reference Field (IGRF) and the World Magnetic Model, this secular variation is assumed to be
constant over 5-year intervals. It has only been possible to accurately determine the small but
persistent field generated outside the Earth, largely by the ring current, since satellite data have
become available.

At the Earth's surface the main field can be approximated by a dipole placed at the Earth's
centre and tilted to the axis of rotation by about 10°. However, significant deviations from a
dipole field exist. Figures 2-11 show maps of declination, inclination, horizontal intensity,
vertical intensity and total intensity at 2020.0, and their predicted secular variations for the
period 2020.0 to 2025.0, derived from the 13th Generation IGRF model.

Earth’s magnetic poles have also wandered. About 300 million years ago, for example, the
north magnetic pole was located in the eastern region of Siberia. It then traveled northward
to the northern coast of Siberia, along to the coastline to Alaska, and then northward to its
present location.

In fact, scientists now know that both of these explanations are correct; Earth’s magnetic
poles have wandered from place to place over time and the rocks in which magnetic minerals
are found have traveled across Earth’s surface. In addition, there is strong evidence that the
polarity of Earth’s magnetic field has shifted (the north pole changing to the south pole, and
vice versa) at least 171 times in the past 76 millions years. These reversals of polarity take
place rather slowly, over a period of 5,000-10,000 years. They then remain fixed for a period
of up to a million years.

Even when the effect of reversal and change of location of Earth’s magnetic poles are taken
into consideration, deviations of magnetic minerals in rocks from true north are still
observed. In some cases, this deviation is very great. Since the 1960s, scientists have believed
that the reason for these variations is that large chunks of Earth’s surface have moved
significant distances across the planet’s face over millions of years.

Scientists can study the history of Earth’s magnetic field by using Earth’s rocks as records.
Paleomagnetism is the study of magnetic rocks and sediments to record the history of the
magnetic field. Some rocks and materials contain minerals that respond to the magnetic field.
So, when rocks form, the minerals align with the magnetic field preserving its position. It’s
called rock magnetism when rocks record the position of the magnetic field. The magnetic
signature of the rocks allows paleomagnetists to date the rocks and map the position of the
field at the time of their formation.

Piecing together the history of Earth’s magnetic field helps us predict its future behavior. We
know from records preserved in rock that Earth’s magnetic field has flipped and reversed in
the past. Based on magnetic records, we know the last magnetic pole shift occurred 781,000
years ago. Earth’s magnetic field also fluctuates in strength every once in a while due to
changes in temperature and convection currents at the core.

Paleomagnetism also provides evidence to support theories in plate tectonics. Because the
ocean floor is mostly composed of basalt, an iron-rich substance containing minerals that align
with the magnetic field, they record the alignment of the magnetic fields surrounding oceanic
ridges. Scientists studied the magnetic signatures of the rocks on the ocean floor and noticed
some recorded opposite directions for magnetic field lines even though they were side by side.
This likely occurred because magma rose from the ridges in the ocean floor and formed new
rock recording a more recent alignment of the magnetic field while pushing old rock with more
outdated magnetic records further from the ridge.
2. EARTH’S INTERIOR HEAT

Earth Gets Hotter the Deeper You Go! Earth’s temperature increases with depth, but not at a
uniform rate (Figure 2.11). Earth’s geothermal gradient is 15° to 30°C/km within the crust. It
then drops off dramatically through the mantle, increases more quickly at the base of the
mantle, and then increases slowly through the core. The temperature is approximately 1000°C
at the base of the crust, around 3500°C at the base of the mantle, and approximately 6,000°C at
Earth’s centre.

Figure 2.11

Geothermal gradient (change in temperature with depth). Left- Geothermal gradient in the crust and upper
mantle. The geothermal gradient remains below the melting temperature of rock, except in the asthenosphere.
There, temperatures are high enough to melt some of the minerals. Right- Geothermal gradient throughout
Earth. Rapid changes occur in the uppermost mantle, and at the core-mantle boundary.

The temperature gradient within the lithosphere varies depending on the tectonic setting.
Gradients are lowest in the central parts of continents, higher where plates collide, and higher
still at boundaries where plates are moving away from each other.
In spite of high temperatures within Earth, mantle rocks are almost entirely solid. High
pressures keep them from melting. The red dashed line in Figure 2.11 (right) shows the
minimum temperature at which dry mantle rocks will melt. Rocks at temperatures to the left of
the line will remain solid. In rocks at temperatures to the right of the line, some minerals will
begin to melt. Notice that the red dashed line goes further to the right for greater depths, and
therefore greater pressures. Now compare the geothermal gradient with the red dashed line.
The geothermal gradient is to the left of the red line, except in the asthenosphere, where small
amounts of melt are present.

Why Is Earth Hot Inside?

The heat of Earth’s interior comes from a variety of sources. These include the heat contained
in the objects that accreted to form Earth, and the heat produced when they collided. As Earth
grew larger, the increased pressure on Earth’s interior caused it to compress and heat up. Heat
also came from friction when melted material was redistributed within Earth, forming the core
and mantle.

A major source of Earth’s heat is radioactivity, the energy released when the unstable atoms
decay. The radioactive isotopes uranium-235 (235U), uranium-238 (238U), potassium-40 (40K),
and thorium-232 (232Th) in Earth’s mantle are the primary source. Radioactive decay produced
more heat early in Earth’s history than it does today, because fewer atoms of those isotopes
are left today. Heat contributed by radioactivity is now roughly a quarter what it was when
Earth formed.

The Earth as a Heat Engine

The Earth is a body of stored heat, radiating into space. This heat is associated with two things;
one is that the very high temperature of the inner parts of the Earth are very high, and the
other is the result of heat generated due to radioactive decay of material in the deep Earth.
3.1 Heat transport: Some basics

Heat is a form of energy and is transported through the Earth. In general the direction of heat
flow is outward.

Heat energy is transported in the Earth by two primary mechanisms -

Conduction - in which a body's temperature is raised in one place and heat flows to cooler
areas by diffusion as the molecules in the body vibrate more vigorously. No material is
transported by conduction, only heat. Heat is transported by conduction in the crust where the
material is rigid and cannot flow, and the temperature gradient is high. Conduction is very
efficient in some materials like metals, and inefficient in others like air. Inefficient conductors
are called insulators.

Convection - a circulatory motion of heated material. Liquids and other weak materials heated
in one area (usually from beneath) experience such motion. We all have the common
experience of watching water or soup move around in a pot on the stove when we heat it from
below. In convection the moving material carries the heat. Generally, the convecting material
also conducts heat at the same time, but the transport of heat by convection in a fluid is usually
much more efficient than by conduction. In the Earth's mantle convection is the dominant
mechanism of heat transport, although conduction takes place as well.

Convection Helps to Move Heat Within Earth

The fact that the temperature gradient is much lower in the main part of the mantle than in the
lithosphere has been interpreted as evidence of convection in the mantle. When the mantle
convects, heat is transferred through the mantle by physically moving hot rocks. Mantle
convection is the result of heat transfer from the core to the base of the lower mantle. As with
a pot of soup on a hot stove, the material near the heat source (the soup at the bottom of the
pot) becomes hot and expands, making it less dense than the material above. Buoyancy causes
it to rise, and cooler material flows in from the sides. Of course, convection in the soup pot is
much faster than convection in the mantle. Mantle convection occurs at rates of centimetres
per year.
As long as heat is being transferred from below, the liquid will convect. If the heat is turned off,
the liquid remains hot for a while, but convection will cease.

Convection carries heat to the surface of the mantle much faster than heating by conduction.
Conduction is heat transfer by collisions between molecules, and is how heat is transferred
from the stove to the soup pot. A convecting mantle is an essential feature of plate tectonics,
because the higher rate of heat transfer is necessary to keep the asthenosphere weak. Earth’s
mantle will stop convecting once the core has cooled to the point where there is not enough
heat transfer to overcome the strength of the rock. This has already happened on smaller
planets like Mercury and Mars, as well as on Earth’s moon. When mantle convection stops, the
end of plate tectonics will follow.

Convection takes place primarily because buoyancy forces are able to overcome viscous
resistance. When a fluid in a container is heated from a central source below, it expands in the
region of heating. In doing so it becomes less dense, and hence wants to move upward toward
the surface. The surface above the heated region will also rise in response to expansion of the
heated fluid. This lighter fluid that has risen to the surface will flow outward toward the edges
of the container where it will encounter the cold edge of the container, cool down and, in doing
so, become less dense and sink toward the bottom of the container. The collective effect is to
set up a conveyer type motion with fluid rising in the center above the heated region, moving
outward at the surface then down the sides.

The Raleigh number - a fundamental quantity

The fundamental quantity known as the Raleigh number -

Ra
- describes the likelihood of a fluid to experience convective motion and the
strength of that motion.

Ra =

It is a ratio of the properties that give rise to convection verses those that oppose it.

The quantities on the numerator all encourage convection if they are large.

- thermal expansion coefficient: the more a fluid expands, the more

it's density is lowered on heating and the more it will want to rise.

g - acceleration due to gravity & - (fluid density)

both contribute because the weight of the fluid makes it want to sink.

d - height of the fluid in the convecting region because the taller the column
the more it rises for a given expansion coefficient.

- temperature gradient in excess of the adiabat (see below for definition),

because stronger thermal gradients lead to more vigorous convection.

In the denominator are quantities which, if large, inhibit convection.

 K - thermal diffusivity describes the efficiency of conduction. If the fluid diffuses [or
conducts] heat very well it will lose heat that way and will not want to convect.

Y - viscosity, because very viscous fluids will resist convection.

It happens that when Ra is ~2000 convection is possible. This is called the critical Rayleigh
number.

Another number that is commonly used is the Prandlt number, which is -

the ratio of viscosity to thermal diffusivity. All other things being equal this ratio must be very
large for convection to take place.

GEOTHERMOMETRY

Magnetic methods are widely used in geothermal exploration and focus on mapping changes in
magnetism related to the distribution of magnetic minerals. Two main types of magnetism
exist- Induced and remanent/permanent magnetization. The former is created by earth’s
ambient magnetic field and the latter dominates in igneous rocks based on its properties and
history. It is typically used to locate hidden intrusive rocks and the estimation of their depth. It
is also used to trace faults. Airborne magnetic surveys are often employed to map near-surface
alteration and iron-rich volcanic rocks. The data is often represented as contour or profile maps.
The magnetic method can be used to identify a deep geothermal source of > 1200 m below the
surface during the reconnaissance of high potential geothermal resources.

Geothermal Gradient

Geothermal gradient, is the increase in temperature per unit distance of depth; it is given by
the tangent to the local geotherm. The magnitude of the geothermal gradient thus varies with
the shape of the geotherm.

Conductive heat flux, H, is related to the geothermal gradient by:

H = λ dT/dz

where λ is the thermal conductivity.

For rocks, λ ranges from approximately 1.8 to 5 W (m °C)−1, with most igneous and
metamorphic rocks falling into a narrower range between 2.0 and 2.5 W (m °C)−1.

In older, stable continental cratons, the geothermal gradient may be as low as 10°C km−1,
whereas in active volcanic regions it may be more than 100°C km−1.

A typical geothermal gradient of ≈25°C km−1 gives a conductive heat flux of ≈60 mW m−2.

In terrestrial low-temperature hydrothermal activity, fluids driven by a topographic head

circulate to a depth of ∼1–3 km in the crust where they are heated by the geothermal gradient.
The fluids emerge through faults at the surface as warm or hot springs with temperatures
ranging from a few tens of degrees above ambient to the local surface boiling temperature
(Figure 3C). Such springs are found worldwide in areas of both normal and elevated heat flow.

Low-temperature hydrothermal circulation in oceanic crust occurs from ridge axes to a

lithospheric age of ∼60 My. This circulation is partially controlled seafloor topography in
combination with the geothermal gradient, with discharge occurring at highs and recharge
occurring at topographic lows. Type and thickness of sediment cover also influences this
circulation. More than 90% of all hydrothermal heat loss from the seafloor occurs at low
temperature. This circulation impacts geochemical cycles as the equivalent of an ocean volume
approximately evens 106 years.

Geophysical methods are often combined (two or more) when carrying out exploration and
development of a potential geothermal field. Popular combinations include magnetic and
thermal mapping; magnetotellurics (MT) and gravity methods; or all of them, including
transient electromagnetic (TEM).

4 The Earth's magnetic field as both a tool and a hazard in the modern world

4.1 Navigation

The earliest writings about compass navigation are credited to the Chinese and date from 11th
century A.D. There is evidence of compasses being used in Europe about 100 years later but the
first observations of declination were not recorded until the 16th century. In 1700 the first
magnetic chart, covering the Atlantic Ocean, was produced by Halley.

Contemporary values of declination, or for some maps the difference between grid north and
magnetic north (grid magnetic angle), are depicted on the majority of modern sea charts,
topographic maps and aeronautical charts. These values must be kept up-to-date by regular
revision of the models from which they are derived. This is an example of the Earth's magnetic
field being a tool.

4.2 Directional drilling

A specialist form of navigation is directional drilling in the petroleum industry. There are two
main methods of navigation available for drilling deviated wells towards often small targets in
the oil reservoirs. One method makes use of gyro tools but this can be expensive. The other
method makes use of magnetic tools. As accuracy is critical for economic reasons and to avoid
well collisions, the accuracy requirements on the Earth's magnetic field values, used to correct
the direction of the well from magnetic bearings to true bearings, are typically 0.1° in direction
and 50 nT in total intensity. To attain these accuracies account must be taken of the crustal
field, daily variations and magnetic storms. This application is an example of the Earth's
magnetic field being a tool in the modern world but it can also be a hazard if no account is
taken of these other sources.

4.3 Geomagnetically induced currents

The most severe magnetic storm in recent times occurred in March 1989 and this had a number
of serious impacts on technological systems by generating damaging geomagnetically induced
currents. In particular, the power transmission system in Quebec, Canada, was shut down for
over 9 hours. Other effects such as increased corrosion in pipelines are also likely. This is an
example of the Earth's magnetic field being a hazard in the modern world.

4.4 Satellite operations

When a magnetic storm is underway the Earth's atmosphere expands because of heating, and
increases the atmospheric drag on satellites at altitudes below about 1000 km. The orbit of the
satellite can be changed and sometimes expensive manoeuvres must be made to compensate.
Other effects on satellites are caused by radiation hits which can interfere with onboard
computers. The prediction of magnetic activity, as a monitor of conditions at satellite altitude, is
therefore of great interest to satellite operators. This is another example of the Earth's
magnetic field being a hazard in the modern world.

Magnetic field, usually total intensity, traverses and surveys over an area can aid understanding
of the underlying geology and in the case of iron ore deposits, can indicate very clearly their
locations. This is an example of the Earth's magnetic field being a tool but it may turn into a
hazard, especially at high latitudes, if care is not taken to remove the daily variations and
magnetic storm effects from the data before interpretation.