Magnetic analysis of some large seamounts in the North Atlantic

Abstract

An analysis of the magnetic structure of Plato and Atlantis seamounts in the North Atlantic was made using the phase-shifting technique of Schouten [9]. The possibility of distinguishing the age of the seamounts from the age of their adjacent seafloor using magnetic data was investigated. The method described proved simple and effective, but showed that age determinations cannot reliably be made from magnetics for the seamounts in question, since the variation of the position of the palaeomagnetic poles during the Cainozoic is not large enough to produce appreciable phase-shift differences in this part of the Atlantic. The polarization is normal. Since smaller seamounts also show a predominance of normal magnetization, this may mean that viscous remanent magnetization (VRM) dating from the present normal period, the Brunhes, is involved. VRM may lead to strong magnetizations in coarse-grained rock as shown by DSDP results. This may result into a general overprinting of thermoremanence (TRM) by VRM, thus glossing over reversed thermoremanent polarizations. Large seamounts thus may appear as normally polarized bodies. The statistics of reversely versus normally polarized seamounts may be explained by the same effect. This implies that palaeomagnetic pole and age determinations based on apparent magnetization directions modelled from the magnetic anomaly pattern over seamounts may be inaccurate.