Holocene geomagnetic field intensity variations: contribution from the low latitude Canary Islands site

Abstract

New absolute paleomagnetic intensity (PI) are investigated from 37 lava flows located at Tenerife and Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). They complete previously published directional results from the same flows and therefore allow to examine the time variations of the full geomagnetic vector. Twenty-eight flows are radiocarbon dated between 1706 AD and about 13 200 BC and one is historical. Eight other flows are not dated but they have stratigraphic links with the dated flows and archeomagnetic ages had been attributed to them based on their paleomagnetic directions. Various mineralogical analyses were conducted, giving access to the nature of the magnetic minerals and to their grain size. We performed the original Thellier and Thellier paleointensity (PI) experiments with a success rate of about 65% coupling this experiment with the strict set of selection criteria PICRIT-03. The mean PIs at the flow level are based on 3 to 12 independent PI determinations except for one site in which only one reliable determination could be obtained. The data indicate some variability in the local field intensity with a prominent PI peak centered around 600 BC and reaching 80 μT (VADM 16×10²² Am²), documented for the first time in this region. Combined with the published data obtained from western Africa, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and the Azores within a 2000 km-radius around the Canary Islands, our data allow to construct a curve illustrating the Earth magnetic field intensity fluctuations for Southwestern Europe/Western Africa. This curve, compared to the one produced for the Middle East and one calculated for Central Asia shows that maximum intensity patches have a very large geographical extent. They do not yet appear clearly in the models of variations of the dipolar field intensity.