Paleosecular variation of the earth magnetic field at the Canary Islands over the last 15 ka

Abstract

We report on new paleomagnetic directions obtained from 38 lava flows located at Tenerife and Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). One flow is a historical one (1706 AD) and 28 other flows are dated by radiocarbon between 1550 AD and about 13 200 BC. Nine other flows are not dated but they have stratigraphic links with the other flows. Thermomagnetic curves, unblocking temperatures and coercivities suggest that the main carrier of the remanent magnetization is titanomagnetite with various titanium contents in the pseudo-single domain range. Paleodirections were obtained by thermal and alternating field demagnetization on more than 400 specimens. The two youngest flows yield directions well consistent with the data previously published from the Canary Islands but only covering the last 500 yr. Comparison with model predictions indicates that the models account on the long-term for most of the data. However, on short-term scale, a better agreement is observed with the archeomagnetic-based model predictions (ARCH3K and SHA.DIF.14k). Two time intervals (between 25 BC and 85 AD and around 600–700 BC), however, are characterized by more variable paleomagnetic directions, suggesting that the variability of the earth magnetic field was faster than predicted by the models. On a wider geographical scale, a rather good consistency is observed between the Canarian dataset and those from Northern Africa, Spain and Azores. Field information is well consistent with paleomagnetic information for the undated sites and they both confirm that the eruption rate of the Gran Canaria volcanic system was high around 600 BC, 1000 BC and 4650 BC. Refined ages could be obtained for two of the undated sites using archeomagnetic dating. Combined with the data previously published for the last 500 yr, this new dataset is the first long PSV record available for the Canary Islands, significantly contributing to the archeomagnetic/paleomagnetic database at latitudes lower than 30°N. Improvement in the time resolution of model predictions is now needed to allow more detailed data-model comparisons on short time scale.