The magnetic properties of some DSDP basalts from the North Pacific and inferences for Pacific plate tectonics

Abstract

One hundred seven basalt samples from seven DSDP sites in the North Pacific studied for magnetic properties were found to have a mean magnetization of 0.005 emu/cm3, a mean susceptibility of 0.001, and a mean Koenigsberger ratio of 10. The mean remanence coercivity as measured by the mean demagnetizing field is 90 Oe. The titanomagnetite in most of these old (13–115 m.y.) and highly fractured basalts has been largely oxidized to titanomaghemite during sea floor weathering. The titanomaghemitization is manifest in an increase in Curie temperature from about 160°C to 300°–350°C and a threefold to fourfold decrease in the saturation magnetization. Although a 50% decrease in remanence intensity and susceptibility can be attributed to oxidation at one site, the relation between degree of oxidation and these two properties is obscured at most sites by magnetic grain size differences. A decrease in remanence intensity no doubt occurs but was not observed because the most highly oxidized basalt, that in thin flows and in the margins of thicker flows, is also the finest grained and therefore had a higher initial remanence intensity. Remanence coercivity, while mainly dependent on magnetic grain size, increases about 50% with oxidation. The remanence direction does not appear to be affected by oxidation. Although the remanance inclinations differ considerably from the present geomagnetic field inclination at most sites, the expected range of secular variation is such that the remanence, with the exception ofthat in Meiji Seamount, could have been acquired by the basalts at the present site latitudes. But the site paleolatitudes calculated from the remanence inclinations correspond more closely to the paleolatitudes predicted by assuming that the Pacific plate has moved northward with the motions deduced by Morgan and others from linear volcanic chains. In particular, the coincidence of the magnetic paleolatitude, 19°, measured in Meiji Seamount at the northern end of the Emperor Seamount chain, with the latitude of the island of Hawaii, supports the fundamental assumption of the Morgan model of Pacific plate motion, wherein the volcanic locus or ‘hot spot’ forming the Emperor‐Hawaiian chain has remained essentially stationary with respect to the earth's axis.