ARCHEOMAGNETISM IN BRAZIL: INTENSITY VARIATIONS OF THE EARTH\'S MAGNETIC FIELD FOR THE PAST FIVE CENTURIES

Author(s)

Gelvam Andre Hartmann

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto Astronômico e Geofísico (IAG/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-11-25

Examining board members

Ricardo Ivan Ferreira da Trindade; Avtandil Gogichaishvili; Claudia Susana Gabriela Gogorza de Leali; Andres Reinaldo Rodriguez Papa; Katia Jasbinschek dos Reis Pinheiro

• Advisor: Ricardo Ivan Ferreira da Trindade

Abstract

The Earth\'s magnetic field varies in different timescales, from milliseconds to billions of years. Magnetic data from observatories and satellites indicate that the dipole moment has continuously been decreasing for the past 150 years. This decay is associated to the presence of non-dipole sources covering a wide region that encompasses the South Atlantic and part of South America; in Brazil, the contribution of the non-dipole fields varies strongly with latitude. In the archeomagnetic timescale (~1,000-10,000 years), the evolution of the Earth\'s magnetic field is not well established, mainly due to the scarcity of data from southern hemisphere, which contributes with only 5% of the intensity data for the past 4,000 years. South America is the terra incognita of archeointensity, counting only a handful of results from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. This thesis presents the first archeomagnetic results from Brazil. In order to investigate different contributions of non-dipolar sources, we concentrated our sampling in two regions located in different latitudes the Northeast and Southeast regions of Brazil. In the Northeast region, all samples were collected in the city of Salvador (BA), the first Brazilian capital settled in 1549 AD. In the Southeast region, sampling was conducted in the cities of Anchieta (ES), Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Niterói (RJ), Iperó (SP), Piracicaba (SP) and Botucatu (SP). All paleointensity data was obtained from architectural fragments (bricks and some tiles) dated between 1550 AD and 1920 AD. The age of bricks and tiles was established on the basis of archeological studies and the historical record of the buildings, providing age uncertainties of less than 30 years for most of the samples. Paleointensity estimates were obtained by two methods: (a) double-heating with measurements in room temperature, using the modified version of the Thellier protocol; (b) double-heating with measurements in high temperatures, using the Triaxe protocol. After measurements and magnetic corrections, all samples were screened using strict selection criteria resulting in 23 high-quality new site-mean intensity values (from 584 analyzed specimens, with a success rate of 57%). These results were integrated into two curves of geomagnetic intensity variation for each studied region over the past five centuries. These curves reveal an oscillating dipole moment for the past five centuries, a behavior not predicted in currently available geomagnetic field models, thus providing key information on the dipole and non-dipole field evolutions in this timescale. The rapid intensity changes described in these curves permit the application of archeointensity techniques as an archeological dating tool, as exemplified by the dating of a house from the Pelourinho area, in Salvador city. (AU)