Paleosecular variations in Holocene-Pleistocene sediments from Lake El Trebol (Patagonia, Arg)

What is it about?

Paleomagnetic studies carried out on six cores from the bottom sediments from lake El Trebol, South Argentina are described. Measurements of directions declination and inclination (D and I) and intensity of natural remanent magnetisation (NRM), magnetic susceptibility at low and high frequency (specific, X and volumetric, k), isothermal remanent magnetisation (IRM), saturation isothermal remanent magnetisation (SIRM), back field and anhysteric remanent magnetisation (ARM) were carried out. Stability of the NRM was investigated by alternating-field demagnetisation. Rock magnetic studies suggest that the main carriers of magnetisation are ferrimagnetic minerals, predominantly pseudo single domain magnetite. Records of NRM and k show a good correlation with the sedimentological description, and also with those of shorter cores previously studied. The tephra layers were identified from the lithologic profiles and also from the magnetic susceptibility logs. Due to their different chronological meaning and their rather bad behaviour as magnetic recorder, these layers were removed from the sequence and the gaps that were produced along the profiles by the removal were closed, obtaining a shortened depth. Radiocarbon age estimates from these cores and from earlier studies allow us to construct a paleosecular variation (PSV) record for the past 24,000 years. These results show good correlation with the previous one. The spectrum obtained from spectral analysis shows major peaks at periodicities of about 1150, 1500, 2490, 3630, 5240 and 11,810 years. Both clockwise and counterclockwise precession of the geomagnetic vector is evident from analysis of the Bauer plots, with a preponderance of clockwise movement.

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Why is it important?

Lake sediments have the potential of providing continuous and high-quality records of the past geomagnetic field. Paleomagnetic records obtained from lake sediments often cover time spans of several thousand years. For this reason, they are useful for studies of paleosecular variation (PSV) over periods of about 10 years. In this paper, we present a PSV record from Lake El Trebol (south–west Argentina). These results are compared with other records from this area previously reported.

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