Facility Support: Institute for Rock Magnetism

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0732473BanerjeeThis grant supports a three year continuation of funding for the Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM) at the University of Minnesota. The goals of the IRM include: 1) providing the geoscience research community with access to a full suite of sensitive instrumentation for detailed study of magnetic properties of natural materials; 2) providing visiting scholars with the support necessary to use the facilities effectively, including technical, educational, and logistical components of support; 3) adapting methods and techniques from physics and materials science, as well as developing new methods, for using magnetic measurement data to characterize complex natural samples and to address questions of specific interest to geoscientists; and; 4) serving as a catalyst in widening and improving the applications of magnetic analysis in geological and biological studies, by holding workshops and conferences, and by maintaining active (and separately funded) research programs in those areas. Research facilitated by the analytical and technical capabilities of the IRM includes high resolution studies of variability in the intensity of the Earth's magnetic field in order to elucidate fundamental questions surrounding the origin of the geodynamo, characterization of the properties of microbial nanophase magnetic minerals, and fundamental studies of the origin of magnetization in minerals and the behavior of magnetic minerals in response to environmental perturbations in temperature and applied magnetic fields. The IRM supports the training of graduate and postdoctoral students in state-of-the-art rock and paleomagnetic analysis techniques and facilitates international collaborations through the Visiting Fellows program and a biennial conference series.***