Project Details
Projekt
Paleomagnetic investigations to better understand the earth’s magnetic field and its interaction with biological communities on the Tibetan Plateau and to validate and refine the chronology of sediment sequences recovered in the ICDP project NamCore (MagNam)
Applicant
Professor Dr. Torsten Haberzettl
Subject Area
Physical Geography
Geology
Geology
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 537667198
The project applied for here is intended to support the Nam Co drilling project (NamCore, Tibet) for which an ICDP full proposal received a very positive evaluation and funding towards drilling costs. In addition to that, we received a DFG contribution towards pure drilling costs but neither funding for on-site staff from the German side nor funding of a scientific project on the sediments to be recovered have been funded so far. Here we request funds to reach scientific goals and to support the on-site scientific drilling operation with staff at Nam Co. Due to different sedimentation rates in the Nam Co basin it is intended to drill a continuous composite record spanning the past 0.5-1 Myr by combining sediment sequences from three different sites. The main aim of the MagNam proposal will be (a) to investigate how enhanced radiation during times of lower magnetic field intensity such as the Laschamp Event impacted climate and/or biological assemblages, (b) to explore whether paleomagnetic secular variations on the Tibetan Plateau are driven by drift of the non-dipole field or large-scale core dynamics and (c) to support the NamCore project with paleomagnetic information to corroborate chronologies. For that purpose, we will analyse paleomagnetic secular variations as well as relative paleointensity proxies using the newly available cryogenic magnetometer optimized for u-channels at the University of Greifswald: The focus will be on a 150 m long sediment sequence comprising the past ~125 kyr to be recovered at the beginning of the ICDP drilling. For that reason, a participation in the first half of the drilling campaign is desirable. During the second half of the drilling campaign and during transport of the cores to the repository in Beijing where the sampling party will be, we will investigate an available 10.4 m long core from Nam Co, which is stored in the cooling facility in Greifswald. After the sampling party, the 150 m sequence will be investigated in detail. In addition to that, we will check if the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary was reached in the oldest parts of the recovered sequences and if it can be used as chronological tie-point.
DFG Programme
Infrastructure Priority Programmes
International Connection
Canada, China, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Cooperation Partners
Dr. Leon J. Clarke; Professor Dr. Guillaume St-Onge; Professor Dr. Hendrik Vogel; Professor Dr. Junbo Wang
