Scandinavian paleomagnetists meet

Abstract

Recently, there have been two meetings at which most of the paleomagnetists from the five Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) gathered to discuss current research in paleomagnetics and to plan future collaboration among the Scandinavian paleomagnetic laboratories. The first meeting took place in Helsinki during May 12–17, 1986, in connection with the 17th Nordic Geology Meeting. A special session on paleomagnetism was convened by L. J. Pesonen (Geological Survey of Finland, Espoo) and K. J. Neuvonen (University of Turku, Turku , Finland). Twenty‐three papers were presented during the 2‐day session. A wide selection of paleomagnetic topics was covered, including papers on Precambrian paleomagnetism of the Fennoscandian and Canadian shields, Quaternary paleomagnetism in and around the Baltic Sea, paleomagnetism and plate tectonics, studies on multicomponent remanences, archeomagnetism, and paleomagnetic instrumentation. The majority of the participants were from the Scandinavian countries, but participants from Canada (D. J. Dunlop, University of Toronto , Toronto; Ö. Özdemir, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; K. Buchan, Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa), Argentina (M. Ruocco, University of Stockholm, Stockholm; C. Sylwan, University of Stockholm), Czechoslovakia (M. Krs, Geofyzika Brno, Brno), Poland (M. Lewandowski, University of Warsaw, Warsaw), and the German Democratic Republic (K. Rother, Institute of Geophysics, Potsdam) were also present. A postconference excursion (led by Pesonen and his students) visited the Paleomagnetic Laboratories in the Otaniemi campus area, Espoo, near Helsinki (Geological Survey of Finland, Helsinki University of Technology, and Technical Research Centre of Finland). The highlight of the excursion was a visit to the magnetically shielded room with its new SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Detector) magnetometers at the Cryogenic Laboratory of Helsinki University of Technology.