Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM)

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Scientists at DTM bring the perspective of several disciplines to broad questions about nature. DTM's name comes from its original role to chart the Earth's magnetic field. This goal was largely accomplished by 1929. Since then, DTM has evolved to reflect the growing multi- disciplinary nature of the Earth, planetary, and astronomical sciences. Today, the historic goal remains-to understand the physical Earth and the universe that is our home.

The above image is a map tracing the voyages that the Carnegie and the Galilee research vessels undertook, beginning in 1905.

News & Features

Carlson to Receive 2008 N. L. Bowen Award

Monday, 21 July 2008

Rick Carlson will receive AGU's 2008 N. L. Bowen Award, named in honor of experimental petrologist and long-time Geophysical Laboratory staff member Norman Bowen. The award is given annually “to recognize outstanding contributions to volcanology, geochemistry, or petrology.” Carlson will receive the award, and will present a Bowen Lecture, at the 2008 Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco in December. For more information, see the CIW press release.

Hauri and Colleagues Discover Moon Water

Friday, 18 July 2008

Photo: NASA

New research on the formation of the Moon by Erik Hauri, visiting investigator Alberto Saal of Brown University, and colleagues, is published in the 10 July issue of Nature. Using the NanoSIMS ion microprobe, the researchers discovered that tiny beads of volcanic glasses collected from two Apollo missions to the Moon contain water, suggesting that—contrary to previous thought—water was not entirely vaporized by the violent events that formed the Moon. The new study indicates that the water came from the Moon’s interior and was delivered to the surface via volcanic eruptions more than three billion years ago. The finding calls into question some critical aspects of the “giant impact” theory of the Moon’s formation and may have implications for the origin of possible water ice reservoirs at the Moon’s poles.

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Photo: CIW

Paul Silver and former postdoctoral fellow Fenglin Niu, now at Rice University, are coauthors of a paper in the 10 July issue of Nature in which they report on changes in the speed of seismic waves that preceded two small earthquakes by ten and two hours—measurements that are encouraging in the field of earthquake prediction.

Silver commented in the CIW press release: “Detecting stress changes before an earthquake has been the holy grail in earthquake seismology for years and has motivated our research. We used a specially designed system to generate and record seismic waves before, during, and after two earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault. It’s been shown in the lab that the speed of seismic waves varies with the level of stress, due to the effect on the opening and closing of cracks. So measurements of changes in wave speed should, in principle, constitute a ‘stress meter’ that could provide an indication of an imminent earthquake.”