For better or for worse, online seminars have stealthily become part of our routine. This week, Daniele Thallner from the University of Florida, “attracts” our attention to a seminar series on geomagnetism and geodynamo modeling — Mag-netZ!
The 2022 season of the MagNetZ seminar series is live!
The MagNetZ (Magnetic NetworkZ) online seminar series was started in early 2020 to serve as an opportunity for the geomagnetism community to talk about science in times when in-person meetings and conferences were not possible. Through 2020 and 2021, the MagNetZ webinars have created an informal space to connect and present the latest research – a great option, especially for early-career scientists, as alternatives were seriously lacking. Now that the pandemic is (hopefully) almost behind us, the MagNetZ webinars are still highly popular and have just started into the 2022 season!
The field of geomagnetism – from the smallest magnetic particles to planetary magnetic fields – is highly multidisciplinary. The Earth’s geomagnetic field is generated in the planet’s outer core’s geodynamo, which makes it a unique tool to study the evolution of deep Earth properties and processes. From that perspective, it is no surprise that the fields of geomagnetism and geodynamics overlap a fair bit. In the previous seasons of MagNetZ, about 30% of seminars covered topics related to deep Earth evolution, core-mantle boundary interactions, or geodynamo generation of the Earth, the Moon, and other planetesimals. These (and many more) geomagnetism seminars might be of interest to the geodynamics community as well.
Granted, anyone longing for that healthy dose of geomagnetism could just watch the 2008 masterpiece ‘Polar opposites’, starring Charles Shaughnessy, Tracy Nelson, and Ken Barnett. However, even an IMDB rating of 3.1 might not always be a guarantee for scientific accuracy, and most of us probably have our fill of doomsday vibes from looking at the news these days. As a more science-y alternative, recordings of all live MagNetZ seminar presentations from the 2020 and 2021 seasons are available to watch on our Youtube channel! Check out at some exciting examples below.
Assembly of proto-Australia during the formation of the Nuna supercontinent in the Paleoproterozoic – a palaeomagnetic view on the early stages of supercontinent cycles with data from rock formations in North Australia.
A time-resolved paleomagnetic record of Main Group pallasites: Evidence for a large-cored, thin-mantled parent body – studying the structure of a planetesimal using palaeointensity data, thermal and dynamo models.
Evidence for an intermittent lunar dynamo – discussing the lunar dynamo and energy budget with palaeointensity data from Apollo lunar samples.
On potential sources of variability and stability in the palaeomagnetic field – long-term geomagnetic field variations and implications for Earth’s evolution.
If you like what you see, please make sure to subscribe to the channel so you get notified about new videos. Information about how to join the live seminars can be found here.
