An OSU Facility supported by the National Science Foundation
Welcome to the Paleo-and-Environmental Magnetism Laboratory in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. The P-Mag Lab is an NSF supported OSU facility dedicated to sediment magnetism and a resource for Pacific NW, national and international scientific communities.
The U-Channel Magnetometer
The P-Mag Lab is built around the unique capabilities of the liquid helium free 2G Enterprises superconducting rock magnetometer (SRM) optimized for u-channel samples. U-channel samples are rigid u-shaped plastic liners (2 x 2 cm cross-section) that completely enclose cored sediments up to 1.5 m in length. This state-of-the-art system provides the capability to rapidly acquire high quality environmental and paleomagnetic data continuously on u-channel samples. The several orders of magnitude increase in data acquisitions allows new archives to be explored and older ones to be more thoroughly examined. Discrete samples can also be rapidly measured with this system.
Our Research
Our approach is to use the high throughput of the u-channel SRM to:
- Reconstruct the space/time patterns of the geomagnetic field.
- Develop and employ geomagnetic change as a stratigraphic dating tool.
- Reconstruct environmental variability through the rock magnetic response to laboratory magnetizations.
Materials for study come from a wide range of sources, including international science programs such as the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and the International Continental Drilling Program, PI driven field programs and retrospective research on the large core collection available at the OSU-Marine Geology Repository.
Recent Blog Posts
Welcome new graduate students, Ben Freiberg and Nick Lavoie, to the OSU P-mag Lab! Good luck to Ben Wheeler and Sam Albert as they leave for their graduate studies!
The OSU P-mag group is getting bigger! We welcome Ben Freiberg, from Skidmore College, and Nick Lavoie, from North Carolina State University, who have made it just in time for Mo Walczak's research cruise off the Oregon Margin next week. Ben is already making...
The P-mag Lab at AGU 2016
We are looking forward to AGU next week! We have a big group going this year, including three of our undergraduate researchers. Stop by and talk to Joe, Rob, Brendan, Mo, Ben, Sam, and Jordan at their presentations. Don't miss: Monday afternoon at the Poster Hall...
The P-mag Lab Welcomes New Graduate Student Katharine Solada
The P-mag lab is excited to work with new M.S. student Katharine Solada over the next couple years. Katharine will be studying the paleomagnetism of lake sediments sampled from the Toba Caldera, Indonesia, working with OSU Volcanologist, Shan de Silva, and Joe...